Delahunty Catherine: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Delahunty Catherine: Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 I will start as others have today with a mihi to the whanau hapu and iwi of Sir Archie Taiaroa of Te Ati Haunui-a-Paparangi Ngati Tuwharetoa Ngati Apa Ngati Wairiki and other iwi and to the whanau whanui of Hauraki for the loss of Jim Nicholls who was one of the rangatira of the area in which I live. I recognise those rangatira. What they have brought to this nation is very important to the Green Party. 
I turn my attention to the Christ’s College (Canterbury) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the bill is to change the trust deed of Christ’s College. It is reasonably innocuous. It hardly caused a flood of submissions; in fact there was only one I believe which was from the college itself. The Green Party voted against the bill at its first reading because we thought the manner of amending the trust deed lacked the checks and balances that other legislation involving trust deeds has upheld. However the Government Administration Committee recommended that some changes be made to the wording particularly in relation to new trust purposes. It is important to us that resources created for charitable purposes can be modernised without losing the overarching charitable purpose. We are in favour of the clauses amended as a result of the select committee’s work notably new section 5(3) inserted by clause 5 which requires that trust property be used for charitable purposes. I think it has been quite well explored. 
As we understand it some major issues have been addressed so the Green Party is happy to change its vote. That is why the select committee process is valuable. It allows us to do such things and to hear in depth the detail of legislation that can be improved. Then we can review whether we are voting the right way. Select committees provide an opportunity to improve badly drafted legislation and bring it into line with best practice. We all put together bills in haste and it is great when they are brought into line with best practice. 
We are pleased to see that the select committee reported issues about the circumstances in which charitable trusts can be varied and a new trust purpose begun. We are pleased that these changes have been accepted by the instigators of the bill. We still have some concerns about the lack of independent oversight of the trust changes such as churches have had in their deeds when that legislation came through the House. But we recognise that if we want to we can make suggestions by way of an amendment during the Committee stage of the bill. 
We are pleased to be able to support this member’s bill now that it has been tidied up without losing its original intent. We have no problem with varying trust deeds if they are done properly and we will continue to seek improvement. As a smaller party we cannot be on the all the select committees but we deeply value their work when they are able to improve a bill. 
As the education spokesperson for the Greens I am much more concerned about the resourcing and development of the public school system and kura kaupapa for the benefit of all than I am about some of the wealthier schools in the country. I am deeply concerned about national standards public-private partnerships and special education in the public system. 
However we are focusing on the Christ’s College bill and the Green Party is happy to say that it can support it at the second reading debate. We look forward to the Committee stage as an opportunity to introduce amendments if we think they are needed. We recognise the effort that the member Nicky Wagner and the select committee have put in to improving this bill. Kia ora koutou.