Section 9 of the Charitable Trusts Act 1993 (NSW) provides a lower threshold for cy-près relief than the general law requirement of impossibility or impracticability; the test is whether the original purposes have ceased to provide a 'suitable and effective method' of using the trust property, having regard to the 'spirit of the trust', which is a broader conception than the original purposes. Where there is no trust instrument, the original purposes and spirit of the trust must be ascertained from a wide range of documentary and oral evidence, including the usage of trust property. Section 9 does not remove the requirement that property be applied as near as possible to the original purposes. A church constitution representing a consensual compact is capable of being changed through practice and is not necessarily to be treated as a written prescription of the trust.
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