Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): I too would like to offer first up my congratulations Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a delight to see you in the Chair and I hope my delight at seeing you in the Chair will keep me off your list for at least today. But having had experience of being on a committee at times that you've been chairing your impartiality I think is respected by all in this House in constructive engagement with our participation.Angie Warren-Clark: And she's funny.JAN LOGIE: And she's funny—that's right. So the Greens are pleased to add our voice of support to this piece of legislation. I in these speeches have had to note that I am not a beneficiary of a trust. I have not been a trustee and I've not been lucky enough to study trust law. So I have been learning a lot from listening to the speeches in the House and reading the details of this legislation. It isn't one of those areas that I wake up and think about with excitement but considering roughly half a million New Zealanders are involved in trusts means that actually a lot of other people are really impacted by this piece of legislation in that it covers community trusts and a lot of people have family assets within trusts and farms as was pointed out by the Minister but also a lot of Māori land is facilitated through trusts.This piece of legislation is the result of around a decade of work that was initiated by the Law Commission I understand around 2009 where they had about a four-year review I understand. There was very broad consultation at that time and this is updating a law that was written in 1956 and I suspect the way that we engage with the law as members of the community is quite different now to what it might have been in 1956. I also suspect that there may well have been a proliferation of trusts over that time which may not reflect a change for the better in our society from my perspective and from the Greens' perspective. But it does make this legislation really important and I would like to acknowledge as others have the Hon Amy Adams for introducing this legislation and the Hon Andrew Little for progressing it through the House to the point where we are passing it with unanimous support today.I think it is in areas where this work has been going on for so long—and as I understand from others is so technical—that it is really important to acknowledge the officials and those members of the Law Commission who have helped us get to this place today. The end result and the intent of it is for this legislation to be much easier to negotiate for everyday New Zealanders. We want trustees to be able to really easily understand what's being expected of them and also for beneficiaries where it's appropriate to be able to get the information about the functioning of the trust as it applies to them. That's been something that actually there have been issues for people where the law has been so opaque that people haven't been able to easily understand their rights or indeed their financial position at times.So broadly this legislation introduces clear rules about when trustees are required to provide information to beneficiaries so that beneficiaries can enforce the trust and practical and flexible trustee powers that allow trustees to manage and invest trust property in the most appropriate ways so that everyone knows what they are able to do. Also another thing which I've seen in different contexts is that it provides options for removing and appointing trustees without having to go to court in straightforward cases because sometimes people move before people next go to do something with the trust and then it becomes a really very difficult process of following and getting things to court just to be able to get somebody who's able to sign off decisions. It makes sense to simplify that when it's not contested in straightforward cases. So there's a range of things. It also creates mandatory and default trustee duties based on established legal principles to help trustees understand their obligations which is I think another key role in this legislation. For the Greens we are really—as everyone is—supportive of this legislation. We would have liked to have seen—considering this opportunity and how much work has gone into this—more transparency created and for there to be a registration of trusts. I understand that that was considered by the Law Commission in its 2012 issues paper but was ruled out due to a perception of excessive cost and also a bit of industry pushback. From our perspective I think we've seen globally and in similar economies an increase in trusts and you know when we see wealth inequality I do think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes wealth can be protected and hidden within the lack of transparency around our trusts. I would acknowledge that the IRD did support the registration of trusts and that they did say that it could be done while keeping some information private. That would have enabled us to have that balance to actually ensure that people weren't using them in a way that we wouldn't want and also recognising that the issue of cost—that it needn't be expensive and that we already have a companies register that it could have been modelled on. So for the Greens that for us is the next step that we want to see. While I recognise—and I'm pleased—I wasn't on that subcommittee I want to congratulate all those who did the detailed work on this to get to this point.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.