Charities Bill

I move, That the Charities Bill be now read a third time. The passing of the Charities Bill into law will allow the new Charities Commission to be established. That is a first for this country, and will further demonstrate that this Government has an ongoing commitment to strengthen its relationship with the charitable sector.

Many people in the charitable sector will remember the idea of a charities commission being floated as far back as 1989, with the release of the Spencer Russell report. It recommended that a commission for charities be established to register, advise, and supervise charities. While the timing was not right then for such a commission to be established, the sector has continued to ask Governments to provide greater support.

One of the Government’s primary forms of assistance to the sector is the provision of certain income tax benefits for charities, and for people who make donations. Over recent years the charitable sector has asked the Government to increase the level of support provided to it through the taxation system, by lifting the maximum rebate level for people who donate to qualifying donee organisations, and by making charitable organisations’ imputation credits refundable. It has traditionally been difficult for any Government to assess how much that an increase in those forms of assistance would cost. That is because robust information about the size and scope of the charitable sector in New Zealand has traditionally been difficult to collect or access. In addition to there being little information collected, there is no specific law, standard procedure, or Government department concerned with ensuring the accountability of organisations that receive donations in cash or in kind.

The reporting requirements currently imposed on charitable organisations are minimal. While some income-generating charities might need to file a tax return, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue’s role is to ensure that income not entitled to an exemption is taxed. The role is not about ensuring that the charitable sector is generally accountable to the public. Holding the officers of a charitable organisation to account for an organisation’s administration expenses, for example, is well beyond the ambit of the commissioner’s current responsibilities. It is also not the role of the Registrar of Incorporated Societies.

The establishment of the Charities Commission will significantly improve the current framework under which charities operate. It will provide the Government, the sector, and the public with more comprehensive information about the charitable sector. From the Government’s perspective, that information will be utilised to assess whether its support for the charitable sector is as well targeted as it can be or whether changes should be made

For the sector, the information on the register is likely to prove to be useful in a number of ways—for example, as a means of tracking funding trends within the sector, which may help organisations to develop more effective fund-raising campaigns, or for determining what service providers are established in a particular locality. The creation of the commission will also allow the public to undertake closer scrutiny of all organisations, purposes, and activities, and the way in which those are delivered to the public. It should help to increase public trust and confidence in the charitable sector.

The establishment of the commission is not just about increasing the sector’s accountability to the public; it is also part of the Government’s wider strategy to strengthen its relationship with the community and voluntary sectors. While the commission will have a registration and monitoring role, it will also have a range of other functions that will allow it to be active in helping to build an effective and efficient charitable sector. That includes the ability to educate and assist organisations about management and governance issues, and the ability to make policy recommendations to the Government on its own motion.

One key area of concern to the sector, as evidenced by the submissions made to the Social Services Committee, is the current definition of “charitable purpose” used across the New Zealand statute book. Once established, the commission will be able to provide policy advice to the Government about the continued workability of the definition, and whether it needs to be updated or left as it is.

Leaving that review for the commission to undertake will allow the review to be better informed than might otherwise be the case. The charitable sector is diverse, and because of that it has been difficult to gather information from and consult with all interested groups. Having a single register of charitable organisations operated by one agency will make it much easier for the charitable sector to become informed about, respond to, and comment on, issues specifically affecting it.

In concluding, I thank the members of the Social Services Committee, the officials from both the Ministry of Economic Development and the Office of the Community and Voluntary Sector, and the large number of organisations and individuals who made submissions on this bill. Charities make an important contribution to the social well-being of many New Zealanders, by providing valuable services that help to strengthen and support local communities. The Government recognises and values that work.

The Charities Bill is a significant step forward for the New Zealand charitable sector. As a means to increase the sector’s public accountability and transparency it represents a positive move toward helping to develop a culture of philanthropy and giving in this country. The establishment of the commission is one of a number of projects that the Government is advancing to strengthen its relationship with the community and voluntary sector. The passing of this bill will help to ensure New Zealand’s charitable sector is able to operate effectively and efficiently to deliver necessary and important services for the betterment and benefit of our communities. I commend this bill to the House.

That would have to be the most boring speech of the night from the most boring member. It is no wonder that David Benson-Pope cannot keep awake. We can imagine how boring it must be in their caucus—except when Mr Tamihere turns up, upon which they all roll over and say: “Tickle our tummy, Johnny boy.”, and they go for it every single time. The great thing about John Tamihere is that he actually did, in an act of charity, give the Prime Minister the opportunity to show just how in touch with her feminine side she really is.

I have looked at the bill and I have listened to some of the speeches tonight, and we have had some really good speeches from this side of the House. I think of Simon Power’s comments on what happens when commissions are set up. He talked about what had happened to the Tertiary Education Commission under Steve Maharey, the man whom Mr Tamihere, very uncharitably and not in accordance with this bill, called “smarmy”. I have gone a bit further—I have looked at Part 3, which contains a few of the core things this bill can do. I refer to clause 70, “Core things Commission can do”, which states—guess what—“anything”! The clause states: “The Commission may do anything authorised by this Act or another Act.”

The bill goes further. I shall read clause 71, “Other things Commission can do”, because it is so exciting, so narrow and so focused. It states: “(1) The Commission may do anything that a natural person of full age and capacity may do.” That, actually, is the power of general competence. The Government, New Zealand First, United Future, and Jim Anderton’s party—whatever its name is—are giving to the Charities Commission the same power that they gave to local authorities, and that resulted in people’s rates being put up, including those of the elderly who cannot afford to pay their rates. That was all from the power of general competence.

The commissioners, who will be appointed by the Labour Government, will be able to do anything they want to do—and guess who pays for it? Well, the Minister stood up in the House and told us a really funny joke. She said that the Government will pay. The Government does not pay; the taxpayer pays. Every single cent that is signed off by any Minister in this House is paid for by the poor old taxpayer, every single time. The Minister said that the Government will pay. Well, it will not. Mr Copeland, very kindly, and trusting in the Hon Michael Cullen, said: “We know it’s going to be OK, because we will get a bigger deduction for charitable donations.

I ask Mr Copeland whether that is right. Is it something like that?

💬 Gordon Copeland: Yes, that’s right.

Well, that is his hope. Even Mr Copeland has to say that that is the hope. Did Mr Copeland check the wording? Did he check every single little word? We know just how clever the Hon Michael Cullen is. We know it because Mr Tamihere said so, and we know it because Mr Copeland has just confessed to us that that is what he is hoping. The good thing is that Mr Copeland may actually get what he wants now, because Dr Cullen will be so keen to show that he is not as clever as that, at all.

We have heard some very interesting things. What we have heard from the Minister in this third reading debate is that the charitable sector asked for this bill. Well, I do not know—I mean, the Minister does not pay a lot of attention at select committees. The Minister does not pay a lot of attention anywhere. We could see by her lack of passion and drive—and everything else that she put into this bill—that she does not really know anything about it. What she actually said was that the charitable sector asked for it. Well, not one of the submitters actually asked for it. Not one of the submitters we heard from asked for it, at all. What they said was that they are frightened they will get loved to death by this commission. They are frightened that they will be stood over by people who do not care about the voluntary sector; people who are busy sitting in cafes, “parlez vous”—that was the term, was it not, I ask Mr Hide—and drinking their lattes; people who do not care about the ordinary New Zealand mum and dad who have to try to find the money for the sports fees and sports equipment. A lot of these fees are now paid for by the charitable institutions that this Government wants to love to death—in other words, clasp them to the Minister’s bosom, and then suffocate them by regulating them out of existence.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

It is true. We could laugh about that, but it is utterly true. That is what happens. We know that there are lots of volunteers who are scared of this bill. They are scared that they will get into trouble because of something someone else does. They are petrified. They came to us and said that they are not going to volunteer anymore. They do not want to, because they are scared. The Green member, Sue Bradford, said that she has heard exactly the same thing.

I have spoken tonight about what would have happened to the Problem Gambling Foundation if this bill had been in effect at the time they lost a huge amount of money to a thief. It would have been in danger of being closed down. The Minister stands up here in the House and says: “Oh well, it’s all discretionary”. I ask the Minister what it is discretionary upon. Is it discretionary upon whether one is mates with the Minister? Is it discretionary upon whether one is mates with someone in the Labour Party? We know that that is what the discretion is, because the commissioners will all be party appointees, and not one of the Labour members will actually say: “We wouldn’t do that.” When we look at the bill, we see regulation for regulation’s sake. The Minister said that we have to stop anyone using charities to rip off people. Well, we already have a law. It is in the Crimes Act. It already is an offence to rip off people, using charities. We do not need to have another law. We do not need to have a law for anything that moves.

I have taken on board some of the points that Mr Jones has made about people who have been dishonest within the last 7 years and whether they should be trustees. Well, I guess I am a bit kinder than Mr Jones. I accept that I may be an old softie on these matters, but I do actually believe that some people have the ability to be rehabilitated.

💬 Katherine Rich: So does the Prime Minister.

And so does the Prime Minister. She believes it as well, Mrs Rich says. In fact, I understand that one can be rehabilitated—

💬 Katherine Rich: In 2 days.

In 2 days. That is all it takes, as well as a bit of stress leave. In fact, one is rehabilitated even before one takes the stress leave.

I believe that people can be rehabilitated, and I do not like to think that just because someone has a criminal conviction, he or she will forever be stopped from contributing in a positive way to society. So, on that basis, I did not support Mr Jones’ amendment. We should not be convicting people before they have actually committed a crime and that, unfortunately, is what we do when we say that nobody who has committed a particular crime will be able to be in a position of responsibility in relation to a charity. It would be far more sensible to be able to say that we cannot trust that Government in spending taxpayers’ money. Fortunately, I think the people are about to say that.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The last speaker, in her opening remarks, slurred the New Zealand First Party, which did not vote for the Local Government Act 2002 and therefore was not responsible for the charges that she said resulted from that Act.

I am happy to withdraw and apologise for that in relation to New Zealand First.

It is not often that I have the opportunity in Parliament to support legislation that, when I was in legal practice, I wanted to see introduced, as I have with the Charities Bill. As I said earlier, when I was in legal practice and forming charitable trusts under the Charitable Trusts Act for various people, I became concerned that the Act had no real means of dealing with people who robbed money from charitable trusts or who just did not operate them satisfactorily. Members will recall that in the early 1980s, when National was in Government and I was in Parliament—and in the later 1980s as well—there were all sorts of groups setting up charitable trusts under the Charitable Trusts Act, especially Māori groups for employment schemes. When I set up a few of those, I was concerned that people were getting money from the Government and there did not seem to be any control on those charitable trusts as to what would happen.

We have heard recently about ACT’s concern about the lack of control over Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. I would have thought that ACT would support this legislation in order to make sure that there are real controls over how money goes to the various trust groups, and I am disappointed that ACT is not following up some of its allegations by supporting the legislation.

I have had concerns about this issue. I wrote to the Minister of Justice in the early 1990s about it. I got a report that went back to 1979, which set out a court case from 1967 in which Justice Gresson expressed his concern about charitable trusts. In that report there was a concern from the National Council of Churches as to the way in which charitable trusts and charities were being operated.

I have had a long-felt regard and concern about the way in which charities have been operating improperly and without any adequate supervision. So I was delighted when this bill was introduced to the House, and I am even more delighted by the changes that were made in the Social Services Committee as a result of the committee giving good consideration to the bill. I mention to the Minister that New Zealand First had a subcommittee on the bill that consisted of myself and Mr Gudgeon. I spoke on the first reading and, because of my interest, he and I communicated regularly on the bill and I kept a close watch on it. So when I had the opportunity to be present for the final deliberation of the bill, I took it with both hands.

I believe that in Opposition, one does not oppose just for the sake of it. If one sees something that is good coming forward, one should support it. As Martyn Finlay would say, it is not just a question of opposing, it is also a question of proposing. In this legislation, something that I have had a great concern about for some time is being remedied. There has been a mischief—a Judge of the High Court and the National Council of Churches have said that there was a mischief—and I am sure that the Government would not have introduced this legislation if there had not been some form of mischief, because otherwise it would have been a complete waste of everybody’s time, and most Governments do not tend to waste taxpayers’ money as freely as that. So I am delighted by the bill coming into the House.

I have just one criticism of the bill that I think is important, but I was not about to spit the dummy out and throw my teddy bear out of the pram just because I did not get my way on that issue. But I think the Government will have to do something about it fairly soon. The Government had originally intended clause 15(2) to state: “(2) The following persons are disqualified from being officers of charitable entities: … (c) a person who has been convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment for a term of 2 years or more: (d) a person who has been convicted of an offence punishable by a term of imprisonment of less than 2 years and has been sentenced to imprisonment for that offence: …”. The Government and the select committee decided to take that provision out, because groups like the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society said that plenty of people had been convicted of disorderly offences—perhaps while opposing the Springbok tour or for driving while disqualified—that are not dishonesty offences, and that that provision covered them.

Then the Government came up with this alteration. In place of that provision, it would put in clause 15(2)(c), which states: “(2) The following persons are disqualified from being officers of charitable entities: … (c) an individual who, or a body corporate that, has been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty (within the meaning of section 2(1) of the Crimes Act 1961) and has been sentenced for that crime within the last 7 years:”. That means that anyone who has been convicted of that crime 7½ years ago can be an officer of a society. That includes people who have been convicted of receiving, blackmail, theft or stealing, theft of animals, and theft by spouse. I am referring to the sections in Part 10 of the Crimes Act regarding the conversion of vehicles, breach of trust, the punishment of theft, the power of search, etc.

When appointing someone to a trust, one wants someone who has not committed a breach of trust. But this Government will allow people who have been convicted of the offence of breach of trust 7½ years ago to be officers of a charitable entity. That just does not seem to me to be right.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: There has to be the possibility of rehabilitation.

Yes, there has to be the possibility of rehabilitation. But, as Judith Collins said when she was being critical of a trust that may get into difficulty and she was considering what could be done, a trust is likely to get into difficulty because some fraudster, forger, or thief is a member of it and has fallen back into his or her old ways again. That is the case.

We are not talking about people who have committed minor offences. We are talking about people who have committed serious offences, and this Government is saying that those people can be officers of a trust. We in New Zealand First take a tougher line in some areas. As has been asked in this Chamber, if people steal from a trust, where is the indemnity for the other members of the trust? It all goes.

One of the concerns has been the question of indemnity. Who will indemnify the other people in a trust if that money goes down the tube? I have raised the issue. I have received no support from the Government. The Minister—as she is entitled to do—offered no support. I suggested that the words “and has been sentenced for that crime within the last 7 years” be removed, so that clause 15(2)(c) would relate to anyone who has been convicted of an offence under section 2(1) of the Crimes Act. I did not receive support. I suggested that the original clauses 15(2)(c) and (d) should go back in, because that was the Government’s original intention. That is what the Government wanted in the first place.

So I have given the Government all the options. For the purpose of the third reading, I just record that that was what happened at the Committee stage—which is one of the reasons for a third reading debate; it used to be the case, and I am sure it still is. If something goes wrong, I will say: “I told you so.”, especially if a substantial trust has to be wound up as a result of a former criminal defrauding it.

The Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society said to us that we should be lenient, and we should make sure that prisoners who had been found guilty of forgery and suchlike had the chance to redeem themselves. But there is too much hard-earned money involved. People have knocked on doors to collect that money. They work extremely hard. There are people at the other end of the chain who deserve that money, and I do not believe that there should be any risk of it being lost. After all, the Government has put a time limit in the provision of 7 years. It considers that people should not be on a trust if they have been sentenced for a crime within the last 7 years. I am merely saying that they should not be on a trust, at all.

I disagree entirely with Judith Collins. She can be soft on this if she likes, but New Zealand First takes a hard line on law and order issues. We are concerned that people with records will be on a trust. At the moment there is a land transport bill, is there not, that relates to people who have committed offences. The Government is saying that those people should never be able to have a land transport licence and that they should have no right of appeal. That is how tough the Government can be. Why is the Government not being equally as tough on forgers, receivers, and other people who have committed dishonesty offences, particularly in respect of charities for which people go to a lot of trouble to raise money? Not only could a trust lose money but it could lose everything else, as well.

I just raise that issue. As I said, New Zealand First will not die in the ditch on it. We believe in the essential principle of the bill. We wish all charities well. We ask them to be extremely careful about whom they employ—although, once again, the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act will make it difficult for them to ensure that the people whom they employ have not previously been convicted of a dishonesty offence. There are a couple of barriers for all employers, but as far as a charity is concerned, there is an even bigger one.

I commend Dail Jones for his speech. We sometimes see piffle on the front page of our newspapers and in the lead stories on the 6 o’clock news that means absolutely nothing and has nothing to do with improving people’s quality of life, yet the cooperative approach that has been taken for most of this evening by all members of Parliament in trying to pass legislation that will be of benefit to the people of New Zealand will not get mentioned even on page 19. I just say to Mr Jones that I enjoyed listening to his speech.

The tone will drop now, because I will refer to those comments made by Judith Collins. I say from the outset that National members, and Judith Collins in particular, would not recognise people from the charitable or voluntary sector even if they ran over them. Judith Collins in her Jaguar—well, I do not care what she drives; I will just say that she would not recognise them if she ran over them. She is the very same member who has made comments that sole parents sit around watching videos and TV all day and smoking dope. That is an indication of how much she knows about people who are perhaps at the lower end of the economic scale, and she has no idea about people who are trying to improve the lot of others in a very humble but very effective way.

I also remind the skeleton crew on the other side of the House tonight that Nick Smith, when he was in that ill-fated National Government, threatened the voluntary sector with the removal of its funding if it spoke out about, and against, the National Government of that time. He threatened the sector with the loss of funding. A lot of those people—and a lot of people whom we on this side of the House know well—were genuinely frightened about that. That was the kind of intimidation that was brought to bear during the last National Government.

Even before then, Mr Muldoon withdrew the charitable status of CORSO because it spoke out about the evils of apartheid. Some people will not remember those kinds of things. Some people will not even remember the huge amount of international activity that took place to rid South Africa of apartheid. The mean Prime Minister of New Zealand at the time, Mr Muldoon, reacted by crawling to Margaret Thatcher, and treated CORSO cruelly. That is something many people in New Zealand will always remember. Of course, some johnny-come-latelies will have absolutely no recollection of that history, at all.

This bill is a good bill, because, firstly, it is an initiative that will acknowledge the vital contribution that the charitable sector makes to the New Zealand economy and to the well-being of New Zealand and New Zealanders. This Government, in support of this Charities Commission, has committed $9.8 million of funding to help the commission in its initial stages.

One very important aspect that has not been mentioned very much tonight is that the charitable sector has approached the Government a number of times over recent years about income tax benefits for charities and for people who make donations, and quite rightly so. The Government will be in a position to assist, because it will now be able to assess how much an increase in the form of taxable assistance would cost and how much it would assist those various organisations. It is critically important to have robust information about the size and scope of the charitable sector in New Zealand, and it has traditionally been quite difficult to collect or assess that information.

This is a good bill because it will protect the integrity and reputation of the charitable sector. I just want to pay my respects and express appreciation to the hundreds of thousands of people who go out and do voluntary work every day, in a humble but hugely important way.

I would like to take a short call in the final stage of this debate, firstly to acknowledge everybody in the House, everybody on the Social Services Committee, and the officials who were involved in putting the Charities Bill together. Although I feel really sad about the opportunity we have missed with this bill, I feel at the same time—as we saw on the select committee and as we can see in the debate tonight—that MPs from both sides of the House have engaged with the debate and recognised the significance both of the bill and of the community sector it deals with. That is a good thing.

But I think it is a real pity that the Government, in the end, did not have the courage to accept that the fundamentals of the bill were flawed from the start and, in particular, that its very beginnings and very flawed consultation processes meant that it was not going to build at any point the kind of trust needed between the Government and the sector to make something like this really work well.

We had submissions, hundreds of them, from all parts of the sector—from what I would call the very conservative end of church groups, mission groups, priests and nuns, right through to groups at the other end of the scale, the sort of groups that I might have come from. We also had groups like the Tindall Foundation, which is probably respected by every party in this House as a very significant philanthropic body in this country. Tindall Foundation representatives came to us and said that the best thing we could do with this bill was to chuck it out and start again, and to learn from the experiences of places like the UK and not be so silly as to go ahead with a bill that, to make work, we would have to amend and amend in almost every clause. In fact, that is what has happened, so we have this piece of miscegenation, and that is a real pity.

Even after the select committee had made its rather fumbling amendments the Government restarted a small consultation process, which succeeded only in annoying a whole lot of groups around the country a whole lot more, because only a few groups were involved and brought to the table. Groups in the north of the country retained a heap of concerns, as did others in the South Island.

There were concerns such as why the meaning of “charitable purpose” had not been dealt with and brought up to date, and ongoing concerns about the threat to the independence of the sector, particularly in relation to advocacy. There were concerns about the functions of the commission and, in particular, that its potentially good role in playing a developmental role with the sector would be subsumed into its regulatory and policing role. There were issues relating to the payment of trustees—for example, in respect of bogus charities such as some primary health organisations, where trustees can receive very substantial payments but the organisations are still seen as not-for-profit. Those kinds of issues that are very real in the sector are just not dealt with by this bill.

There are ongoing concerns about the lack of detail and the information provided during the consultation processes, and I know there has always been an anxiety about what will happen once this bill is passed, in terms of its regulation-making powers and what kind of consultation will actually happen at that point. That is really getting down to the nitty-gritty.

Just recently, too, there have been changes announced by the Government about proposed alterations to the Financial Reporting Act. Financial disclosure under the Charities Bill will be determined by the Financial Reporting Act’s requirements, which are still subject to work by the Ministry of Social Development. What is all that going to mean? We do not know. None of the community sector organisations in the country know. We do not really know what we are passing tonight or what the implications are, and will be, for the financial reporting requirements of all those groups in the future.

Just this week we had an announcement by Cabinet on Monday—which stunned many parts of the community sector—of its sudden withdrawal of support for a body whose establishment the sector had spent 5 years working through with the Government. The new national entity had been backed by the Government, but in one day that support was withdrawn. I do not know how some of the groups that might have supported this bill may be feeling tonight about the relationship between the Government and the sector. It has certainly not been a fantastic trust-building process.

There has not been, at any point, comprehensive analysis of the genuine need for or real cost of the proposed legislation, nor has the Government really ever had a clear understanding of what the bill seeks to achieve, and how. What we have ended up with tonight is a far cry from what could have been a really empowering and enabling piece of legislation, supported by all the different groups and by MPs across the House. I believe it is most unfortunate that the Government still appears not quite to understand what an excellent opportunity it has missed.

The message from this Government to the charitable sector is a simple one: “We won. You lost. Eat that!”. Here is a Government rushing through legislation under urgency that Sue Bradford, who is an expert in this area, says she does not understand and the charitable sector does not want. But what does this Government care?

We heard the Minister responsible, Judith Tizard, give a speech—actually saying “speech” is dignifying it. She stood up in this House, and gave the worst speech I have heard her give. She just mumbled into the Prime Minister’s handbag. I do not know what was going on—whether it was that she was so embarrassed by this bill. Then we heard Jill Pettis, whom John Tamihere has nicknamed “Paint Stripper” because of her voice—

💬 Hon Member: What!

I know she knows. I have news for the Labour Government! John Tamihere is talking to the media again. It is going to be great. He is actually giving “on the record” interviews again about his colleagues and repeating everything, so there will be some fun in the weeks ahead. But we heard from Jill Pettis—

💬 Jill Pettis: I think you are obsessed with me. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Order!

I am not sure I can go on. Could I take a minute to recover?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, you can. I have not taken it off your time.

That is a shocking, shocking thing to say. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take deep offence at the comment that Jill Pettis made. I consider it to be an insult and offensive, and I ask that you ask her to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Sorry, Mr Hide. At what point did she make that comment?

The thought that I could be obsessed by her.

💬 Opposition Members: Obsessed with her.

Oh, the thought that I could be obsessed with her! That is deeply insulting and offensive, and I take offence.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): You have taken offence?

Yes. I have a reputation to protect.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The member has been offended by what Jill Pettis said. I ask her to withdraw.

💬 Jill Pettis: All right, I apologise.

God knows, there are girls in Parnell who could be listening!

What we have heard from this Government tonight absolutely backs up what John Tamihere has been telling us and telling the nation. Mr Gordon Copeland got up and said that he does not like this legislation but will vote for it because he hopes that if he does vote for it, Dr Cullen will lift the tax-free threshold for charitable donations. That is what I understand Mr Copeland to be saying—that he would vote and hope.

Then we heard from the Minister in charge of the bill, Judith Tizard. She got up, mumbled away into the Prime Minister’s handbag, and said that the reason for this bill is so that the Government can collect information about the charitable sector. That is very interesting. What is the Government going to do with this information? [Interruption] She went on to explain, I say to Mr Copeland, that it is to figure out how much it would cost if it lifted the threshold for tax-free donations. She is nodding her head—that is exactly what she was saying. Gordon Copeland is voting for this legislation in the hope that the Government will gather up information, figure out what lifting the tax-free threshold will cost, and Michael Cullen will then reward the charitable sector with some extra tax perks. That is the basis for Gordon Copeland’s vote. It is a case of vote and hope—let us collect the data and hope. I think Mr Copeland has been duped. [Interruption] He says there is nothing wrong with being duped. Well, he may think that, but I think there is a problem with being duped.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: That member would know about duping people.

Is that not great! Here is the Labour Party talking about my duping people. This is coming from a party that has Steven Ching at No. 42 on its list. Talk about being duped!

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: Where was Donna Awatere Huata on your list?

She is gone—that is where Donna Awatere Huata is on our list. After the Labour Government gave her $2 million, we got rid of her. Where is Steven Ching? He is coming in, and he is a man who lies to people—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Order!

—and obstructs justice.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Order!

What is that, Mr Assistant Speaker?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Was the member referring to a member in the House?

No—Mr Ching. He lies.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): All right, but can I, in that case, explain—

He is a total liar and a total crook.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I ask Mr Hide to make some reference to the bill.

Yes—we are talking about being duped.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Let’s talk about Fiji.

Do we not just love Mr Swain! He wants to talk about Fiji. Labour’s line is this: “Let’s talk about Fiji, but when it comes to John Tamihere, we want to put a line under it and move on!”. Mr Steve Maharey says that he did not get an apology or a retraction. John Tamihere called Steve Maharey “smarmy”, and he hates that. He considers John Tamihere to be a liar, and now he says he just wants to put a line under it and move on. That is what Mr Maharey, No. 3 on the list, says.

I can understand the concern that those in the charitable sector have. They are saying that if someone comes into one of their organisations and he is a crook, that person can actually get the whole charity deregistered. I want to explain to the Labour Party how easy it is to get members who are crooks coming into a charitable organisations. The Labour Party should know, should it not? Labour has Steven Ching at No. 42, and I can tell the Labour Party members that they will learn a lot more this Sunday about their No. 42, Mr Steven Ching, the man who was selling seats to sit beside Helen Clark for thousands of dollars.

💬 Judith Collins: They want their money back!

Yes. Then there was the matter of obstructing justice. Did the Labour Party know about that? Did Labour members know about the fact that John Tamihere had pleaded guilty in the High Court to two counts of forgery and two counts of uttering?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): We are debating the Charities Bill.

Yes, and what we are talking about—and it is right on; this is a third reading speech—is wrongful behaviour. I am just saying how easy it is for a charity to get someone on board who is less than savoury. I ask members to look at the Labour Party. It has got itself stuck with John Tamihere, and it has got itself stuck with Mr Steven Ching, who is No. 42 on its list. If that is what can happen in the Labour Party, we can imagine what can happen to, for example, the New Zealand Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society. It could happen there, and that society could end up being deregistered. I think Mr Maharey knew all along what Mr Tamihere was like. He nods his head. He knows exactly what Mr Tamihere is like.

We have a bill here that affects the charitable sector—37,000 charities. It is true that about 500 of them were set up by Mr Tamihere. But 37,000 charities are going to come under this regime with seven appointments from the Labour Party to set up the commission, and a team of bureaucrats to run around and monitor, inspect, and collate information. Those members talk about putting $9.8 million into it. That will actually be a drop in the bucket compared with what it will eventually cost.

Let us think of any one of those charities and what it could do with $9.8 million! Let us think about the good works that could be done with $9.8 million! It will, though, all go just on bureaucracy. That $9.8 million will be spent on making more work for the charitable sector. That is what will happen.

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: What?

Steve Maharey yells out “What?”. I know that Mr Steve Maharey can talk for 2 hours and if one takes a page of notes, all it is is clichés and hackneyed policy words, but there is no substance. We know that because his former Associate Minister John Tamihere told us. He summed up Mr Maharey rather well—I thought it was perfect. He said he was smarmy. Do members notice how smarmy his interjections are? [Interruption] Oh, he wants to be slimy rather than smarmy. Maybe he is slimy and not smarmy. I do not really know, but I know that what Mr Tamihere had to say was not very nice—and it was the truth. I say to Government members that they should listen to John Tamihere a bit more. They should not just go around liking him because he gives 150 percent. They should not just go around saying: “When he’s good he’s really good, but he has the odd stumble.” They should listen to what Mr Tamihere is saying. He is telling Labour members that they are out of touch.

💬 Jill Pettis: Oh, he’s scoring another 2 percent.

That is “Paint Stripper”—Jill Pettis from Whanganui. That is what Mr Tamihere has gone around the gallery and said tonight.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: Oh, that’s original.

Mark Burton confirms that he has heard it before.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Order!

It has been going around for years, according to Mr Mark Burton. Labour members should listen to what Mr Tamihere is saying.

They should think about the charitable sector, which is there to look after families, which this Government knows nothing about. They should listen to families and to hard-working New Zealanders. My goodness! As my colleague Sue Bradford said, Labour should just listen to the charitable sector. But, oh no, Labour members are sitting around supping their lattes, talking parlez-vous, and not listening—just plotting.

I am pleased that the Charities Bill will receive its third reading this evening and become the law of the land. Let me say just for the record that the Social Services Committee, which I was on—it sounds like it was a different one from the one Sue Bradford or Judith Collins was on—actually heard 743 submissions from organisations that collectively would have represented thousands of New Zealand charities, and virtually all of those submissions said that they felt the time had arrived for the establishment of a charities commission. So the concept of a charities commission has the overwhelming support of the charitable sector.

I thought that in this third reading debate it would be worth just pausing for a moment to think about the wonderful benefit that not only our nation but the world derives from charities, and I want to refer to the tsunami in east Asia, which has occurred since the first reading of this bill. It is almost inconceivable to think of how the world would have responded to that disaster without the assistance of charities. We think immediately of organisations such as the New Zealand Red Cross Society, Unicef, World Vision, Christian World Service, Caritas Aotearoa - New Zealand, and The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, or “Tear Fund”, for short.

Here were charities that within hours of that disaster were responding not only by asking Kiwis to help—and Kiwis are very, very generous—but also by getting people on the ground to deliver goods and services, medical care, comfort, and so on to the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives will never be the same again after that enormous event.

Kiwis are generous people. There would be many people who, in response to that tragic disaster, would have given over and beyond their regular giving to charities, yet under the present law they get a measly tax rebate on doing so of just $630 per annum, and that needs to change. Governments should encourage greater giving through higher rebate levels. We need to remember that for each extra 33c given up by the Government, the charity receives an extra $1. If, for example, the Government gives up $20 million, it will be because Kiwis have given of their own free will an extra $60 million to charities.

The fact is that such giving is an efficient and effective investment in the social development of those countries that are its recipients. If given to developing countries it has the potential to transform the lives of others, particularly in those countries that are desperately poor. I have only to mention, for example, the Fred Hollows Foundation, or mercy ships, and immediately images come to mind of the medical miracles that result for people who were blind, or near blind, who can see again, and the deformed and crippled children, often outcast by society, whose lives are transformed with life-changing and lifelong positive consequences.

Again I ask the Government to take note. It now has the Charities Commission; it is up to it now to improve the tax rebates and concessions that it gives to encourage Kiwis in their natural propensity towards generosity.

Charities are also looking for the refundability of imputation credits. On introduction, the original purpose of imputation credits was that the final tax paid would be equal to the marginal tax rate of the recipient shareholder. Well, the marginal tax rate of those charities that have shares in New Zealand companies is zero. So why do they pay 33c in the dollar as a final and non-recoverable tax because they cannot claim back their imputation credits? It is wrong and it is blatantly unfair, especially when non-resident companies—that is, commercial organisations, not charities—can now get an imputation tax refund.

Additionally, so long as charities can receive interest income without tax deduction—and there is no suggestion that that would change in any way, as is right and proper—they should also, of course, not be paying imputation tax on company dividends at 33c in the dollar, because that fundamentally distorts investment patterns by charities, so that decisions become tax-driven rather than market-driven, something that directly contradicts not only common sense but the policy advice given to the Government by Treasury. Charities will also want to see that fixed in this year’s Budget.

In conclusion, the passage of this bill is a landmark in the evolution of the New Zealand charitable sector. It is a sector that has served this country well, since the foundation of our nation. My hope is that it will continue to flourish in the years ahead, that there will be an increasing appreciation by New Zealanders of the valuable work that it does, and that the Government will do its bit to encourage that to happen.