Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill

I call on members’ order of the day No. 3. [Interruption] Order! I think the member has to ask for the call first.

I move, That the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill.

New Zealanders are amongst the most generous people in the world, per head of population. In 2010 New Zealanders donated just under $1 billion, while in 2014 this increased by 25 percent to just under $1.25 billion. The median amount of money New Zealanders donate now sits at around $40 per person per month. This is the highest amount of charitable donations since the Canterbury earthquakes, when 46 percent of the population made a donation to charity. Generally, around 41 percent of the population donates to a worthy cause.

It is important that New Zealanders know that the donations they provide to those in need are going to legitimate charities, and are aware of just how much of their donation reaches those it is intended to help. Statistics show that my electorate of Waimakariri has 6,207 registered volunteers—this being 14 percent of the Waimakariri’s population. My region of Canterbury has not only 2,500 registered charities but over 52,000 volunteers who contribute over 239 hours per week to the community. This can be compared nationally, with New Zealand having just under 470,000 volunteers, or 15.5 percent of the country’s population. It is no surprise, then, that—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I would request my colleague Stuart Nash to be seated when he is talking to someone like that. It is very rude.

It is no surprise, then, that New Zealand is ranked in the top five most charitable countries in the world since 2010 on the World Giving Index.

The aim of this bill is to require that any person collecting donations, subscriptions, signatures, or other support for an organisation or cause in a public street or place must disclose the existence of payment or remuneration for performing that collection or solicitation, in order to ensure that members of the public are informed whether a public collector or solicitor is being paid to solicit or collect donations, signatures, or other support. The bill provides that anyone who is collecting donations, signatures, or other support for an organisation in any public place, and is receiving payment or any other remuneration for engaging in such activity, must disclose the existence of this payment or remuneration to relevant members of the public.

However, the bill also provides that where the organisation or cause is a registered charity, disclosure is not required to be made. The bill provides that disclosure may be made orally or in writing and must be made to each member of the public who is solicited or from whom a collection is taken. The disclosure must be made before any collection occurs and must include a statement that the person collecting support is receiving payment or other remuneration from whichever person or organisation is providing the payment or remuneration.

I believe that most people want to know whether a public collector is a volunteer or is being paid to collect donations or signatures. This bill will guarantee that transparency. The bill will require anybody collecting donations, subscriptions, signatures, or other support in a public arena to disclose whether they are being paid or remunerated for their service. In the case of donations for a charity, this bill will help people to be confident that the charity will actually be getting all of the money they are donating.

This bill will bring us into line with the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, which already have transparency measures in place regarding public collections. Kiwis have a true spirit of voluntarism, but in recent years there appear to be more people who are paid for collecting, whether it be for signatures or donations. This is a change in culture for us. I believe that the public has a right to be informed about where donations are going. The bill aims to bring transparency to public collectors who are paid to collect donations or signatures. This is to ensure that members of the public are fully informed when signing, paying, or donating to any cause.

New Zealand has a great culture of voluntarism. New Zealand has a mixed economy of care that consists of private, Government, and community provision of care. I value the contribution the voluntary sector makes to the well-being and care of New Zealanders. I believe in big communities. The work our volunteers do makes New Zealand a better place. On average there are just over 400,000 Kiwis volunteering every week for a charity, adding up to over 1.5 million hours contributed to our communities. New Zealanders are traditionally good at volunteering. We are amongst the very best in the world.

When there was a great need in Canterbury after the earthquakes, lots of people, especially the young, inspired all of us with their commitment and endurance in helping others. As an example, the town of Kaiapoi in my electorate was hardest hit by the September 2010 earthquake. In the days immediately following the 4 September earthquake, the Student Volunteer Army was a visible force on the streets of Kaiapoi. It started with a Facebook event and resulted in thousands of student volunteers car pooling out to the Waimakariri, baking food for the affected residents, and cleaning up liquefaction left on the streets and in people’s gardens. This example of voluntarism soon grew up to over 2,500 volunteers contributing to the clean-up, and now the Student Volunteer Army is seen around the world as a model of best practice for how to make a difference in your community.

The bill seeks to achieve its objectives by requiring that any person collecting donations or support for an organisation—except for registered charities—in a public place must disclose the existence of any form of payment, and by requiring that the disclosure must be made orally or in writing to each member of the public who is solicited or from whom a collection is taken, before any collection occurs. The bill contains a strict liability infringement offence for collectors failing to disclose payment or remuneration information as required under the bill. The penalty is a maximum fine of $1,000. Infringement offences do not carry the possibility of conviction.

The bill provides that where a police officer observes a person committing an infringement offence or has reasonable cause to believe that such an offence is being or has just been committed by the person, the police officer may issue an infringement notice in respect of that offence. The bill builds on the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill. That bill amends the Fair Trading Act 1986 and imposes a requirement on professional fundraisers acting on behalf of charities that retain more than half the money collected in fees to disclose the percentage retained. The Charities Commission reported regularly receiving complaints relating to third-party collectors, and noted a rising awareness in the media of the use of third-party contractors.

To conclude, I received an email of support recently from Tony Duncan, the chief executive of the Heart Foundation. Mr Duncan told me that the Heart Foundation is generally supportive of this bill, as, like many charities, it relies on the generosity of donors and it is hearing more regularly that donors are intimidated into donating by some of the aggressive sales tactics being employed by commission-based sales staff. For example, in the past 18 months the Heart Foundation has had more than 20 complaints from another organisation’s donors, who thought they had been donating to the Heart Foundation. The Heart Foundation passed these complaints on, but the damage is already done. This charity believes that if the public knows where their donation is actually going, and that those collecting are genuinely engaged in the charity and are not being paid per sign-up, it will only encourage more generosity and more engagement. If there is more transparency it will help the sector.

New Zealanders are amongst the most generous people in the world per head of population. I believe that most people want to know whether a public collector is a volunteer, or is being paid to collect donations or signatures. This bill will guarantee that transparency. This is to ensure that members of the public are fully informed when signing, paying, or donating to any cause. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Firstly, may I commend Matt Doocey for getting his first member’s bill into the House out of the ballot. It is a special day for you and I want to acknowledge that.

I want to say that we support the bill to select committee, but there are one or two things that we are not entirely sure of and that we are hoping, through the passage of this bill—if it does actually go through to select committee tonight—will be resolved over the course of this discussion.

First is the question of what the purpose of this bill is. I am not entirely sure that the general policy statement actually outlines exactly what that member across the other side of the House has just disclosed to us. The policy statement says that the bill seeks to bring transparency to public collectors who are paid to solicit donations or signatures, to ensure that the public is fully informed as to all the relevant information when signing, paying, or donating to any cause.

I am not sure that this is actually a huge issue in the community sector, because this bill does not actually relate to registered charities. Registered charities will be exempt from this bill and they would be the lion’s share, surely, of the charities out there soliciting donations. Every lunchtime, just about, on Lambton Quay, there will be someone with a bucket or a charity stall set up on a table, or someone looking for signatures on a petition or for a particular cause who would not be covered by this member’s bill. So I am not entirely sure about whom is going to be captured within this bill, and whom it is particularly that this bill is wanting to actually incorporate within it. So I am really looking forward to that discussion at some point, about finding out who the intended groups or people are who are supposed to have the issue of these “chuggers”—these donations that are solicited by people who do not declare their status in terms of whether or not they are a paid employee. We are talking about 26,000 registered charities in this country that will be exempt from this bill.

Just on the issue of “chuggers”, I suspect that the bill is designed to reduce the impact of those charity muggers, or “chuggers” as they are called. But, as I say, where we most often encounter them, when we are talking about some charities—and I will name a couple: perhaps Greenpeace or Oxfam or Save the Children; some quite large charities—by and large they are registered charities so they will not be covered by this bill.

Those who are employed to collect the donations or signatures and are paid commission will need to disclose that before the signature or the donation is made. How will that apply if somebody is dropping a coin into a bucket on a stand in a shopping mall? Will the person who is actually collecting the donation be then required to chase after the person who has made the donation into the bucket to tell them to make that disclosure about whether they are a paid employee or on commission? It seems like a little bit of overkill.

I have actually spoken to not only the Heart Foundation, as Matt Doocey has, but to many other community organisations to ask their opinion of this bill, and most of them are saying that it is not going to apply to them. One of the responses that I got was: “Does this member of Parliament not have anything better to do with his time?”.

I got a very interesting response from Surf Life Saving New Zealand, which said that all of the “chuggers” that we see on the streets are all working for legitimate charities, and the significant players are already ahead of the game due to previous bad publicity. So rather than pay for the services of the “chuggers” from the funding they collect on the street, they fund them from other sources, which allows them to legitimately make the claim that 100 percent of what the donor pays goes directly to the charity. So there are already mechanisms in place for charities to use to facilitate the fact that they can get around the provisions of this bill.

But there is another issue at stake here, and that is the reputation of charities. The reputation of charities can be called into question if the public now has to have disclosure statements from them. That would be an unintended consequence, and I do not know whether the member has actually thought that issue through. Charities being required to disclose does put a negative slant on the reputation of charities. One or two charities have indicated to me that they are a little disquieted about that.

Let us look at the organisation that is responsible for the professionalisation, I guess, of fund-raisers, and that is the Fundraising Institute of New Zealand. What it has to say is very interesting. It says that there is the old concern about the public having the right to be informed about where their donations are going to and the overall cost of fund-raising, and that it is trying very hard to professionalise the profession of fund-raising. Fund-raising is a difficult and complex profession. It is something that I have been involved in throughout my community career, and reputation is everything. Relationship is everything. Any bill or any discussion that gets in the way of that relationship, particularly if you are trying to build trust with people over the long term, has an impact on your ability to fund-raise successfully. So while the Fundraising Institute is looking seriously at increasing the professionalism of fund-raisers, this bill seeks to do the complete opposite by throwing into doubt the professionalism of the fund-raising fraternity.

Let us face it: there are many, many organisations that would not be able to fund the services that they currently undertake unless they have the services of professional fund-raisers. Professional fund-raisers are not to be dismissed. They are a very important, vital part of the community sector, and many organisations that are partially funded by Government, for example, rely on professional fund-raisers to make up the shortfall.

While we are on the matter of registered charities, at the beginning of this speech I said that there were about 26,000 registered charities in this country. Unfortunately, what has happened over a very short period of time is that many of these charities, through perhaps not filing annual returns or perhaps not completing information for charity services, have been deregistered. In fact, I think somewhere in the region of over 1,000 have been deregistered since the beginning of the year.

I wonder about this Government’s intention to continue to support the charitable sector if, on the one hand, they are criticising the ability of professional fund-raisers to actually raise sufficient funds for charities to continue to do the good work that they do, and then, on the other hand, they are deregistering charities, which means it is impossible for them to get Government contracts, and also to secure funding. It seems very counterintuitive to me. Anyway, on that note we will be looking forward to more discussion on this and to resolving many of those issues. Thank you. We support this bill to the select committee.

It is an honour to stand and take a call on this Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill at its first reading. I want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Matt Doocey. Again, it is always an honour for any MP, and especially when you are a backbencher, to be able to have your member’s bill drawn. To Mr Matt Doocey, I congratulate you on having that opportunity. There are many members who have been here for a long time who have never had a bill drawn, so it always—

💬 Chris Bishop: You’ve had one.

I have had one too. So it is an honour to be able to do that.

I just want to make some comments about the previous speaker Poto Williams making what I thought were some slightly uncharitable comments about Mr Doocey, asking whether he has anything better to do. Most members’ bills are actually small bills that make amendments to other pieces of legislation, or they introduce a small form of legislation around the change. Although we are talking about the big shifts and changes, most members’ bills are not earth-shattering, they are not moving the world in significant ways, but they do look at things and they do ask the right questions.

I do want to make this point. The question is this: what is the mischief, what is the area of concern and need that needs to be changed or addressed in this bill? This bill talks about the aspect of requiring all persons who are “collecting or soliciting donations, subscriptions, signatures or other support for an organisation” to disclose any payment or remuneration for performing that role. In other words, it is wanting to assure that there is some transparency.

The comments that have been made are that, yes, we have a strong volunteering culture. We also have a very charitable culture. Mr Speaker, you probably remember back in the days when we used to have the telethon. There were lots of fund-raising activities right up and down the country. I remember that our family used to bunk down in the sitting room and watch that 24-hour cycle where people would raise money and they would sing that song “Thank you very much for your kind donation”. That is the sort of culture that New Zealand has where, even today, just last year, there was $1.2 billion worth of funds raised by New Zealanders, given to charities right up and down the country, both for purposes in New Zealand and also abroad as well. It shows that we have this culture, and we want to protect this culture, not only of volunteerism but also this culture of having a charitable nature. This bill, then, is wanting to say this, though it is not trying to and will not address those who are volunteering for a charitable organisation. What it will do, though, is protect those charitable dollars and those charitable funds.

We have nicknamed them “chuggers”: in other words, people who for devious reasons will turn around and try and take those charitable dollars that are meant for good intentions and may use it for their own. That is the area of concern that Mr Matt Doocey has actually raised here. It is an area of concern. We know it happens. Just a couple of weeks ago Ronald McDonald House was robbed, and families were in there. What we thought was actually sacrosanct, places that we thought were sacred, that were tapu to us, OK—

💬 David Shearer: What’s this got to do with the bill?

It has a lot to do with the bill. What it does is it talks about, Mr Shearer, the volunteering aspect and the charitable dollars that we spend and how we protect those who are most in need as well. That is what this bill actually talks about, and the other parts of the bill also talk about this. It talks about subscriptions and signatures. There was a concern at one time that there were potentially political parties that were using taxpayer-funded dollars to allow their staff to go out and potentially get signatures for petitions. That is a concern that New Zealanders would have because if they had not disclosed their intent, where they come from, and the purpose for which they were gaining those signatures, then I think that the public needs to know whether there needs to be a disclosure and whether people need to be aware. So this bill has a good intent.

I think as it goes from its first reading we will hear a variety of different submissions. I know that Mr Matt Doocey will be able to support that as it is going to the Social Services Committee. It will be simple things like this: if Mr Matt Doocey went out into the public and said that he was going to gain a subscription or some support, maybe even a signature, then he should be able to say “Good morning, I am Mr Matt Doocey. I am actually here on behalf of this organisation wanting to raise some funds or a subscription.”, and be able to declare that so that it is transparent. There is nothing hard or difficult about that, but what that does do is it creates a sense of honesty about the intent and the purpose for which that person or the organisation is gaining.

I support this bill to select committee. I look forward to the submissions. There will not be hordes of submissions, but there will be enough that turn around and say: “Look, there is a concern here.” We should make sure that we protect those charitable dollars. Like I say, $1.2 billion of charitable funds that go out to our communities, and, yes, it is the surf lifesaving groups and it is the hospices. I went to a fashion show in Te Atatū community centre just last weekend. It is organisations that provide much needed service—

I apologise. I was distracted. The member’s time expired some time ago.

It is with pleasure that I rise for the second time this evening to offer our support for a member’s bill, this time the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill. This time it is a bill sponsored by a Government member, my fellow Social Services Committee member Matt Doocey.

This bill seeks to bring transparency to public collectors who are paid to solicit donations or signatures, to ensure that the public is fully informed as to all the relevant information when signing, paying, or donating to any cause. Under the bill, collectors who fail to make adequate disclosures as prescribed commit an offence. The Green Party is happy to support this bill to the select committee and for us to have the discussion.

Basically, when we consulted with members or representatives of the community and voluntary sector about their views on this bill, what they told us was that they were not convinced that this is wide enough to be really useful in terms of the issue around the neologism that is being quoted already around “chuggers”, and giving people that sense of security on the streets or in their homes around the validity of an organisation. They noted that from their perspective the goal is to give people information when they are approached for donations or signatures on the street, over the internet, and over the phone by people who are being paid to do this on behalf of any group. What this bill provides for, though, is to give people information when they are approached for donations or signatures on the street by people who are being paid to do so on behalf of groups that are not registered charities.

So already, if you think of the streets of Wellington or of most other streets in New Zealand, the main people whom we see collecting are young people paid by Save the Children or Unicef or Greenpeace. These are all registered charities, and therefore not covered by this bill. I do take Labour colleague Poto Williams’ concerns around creating a sense of public distrust in fund-raisers, and that is not something that we want to do. I am not, for any second, suggesting people should have concerns about people collecting for Unicef, Greenpeace, or Save the Children. But I do think that there is an issue that the sector has raised about ensuring confidence in fund-raising so that people are more confident about giving. What they are saying is that there need to be protections like this right across the board for all methods, not just on the street and not just for non-registered charities.

I do think the point that was raised in the example that was given, of political parties that have staff members who were collecting, was interesting. I think the provisions around name and organisation and being paid are not too much to ask. I do not think anyone would have an issue with that. I think it will be interesting to see us, as MPs, when we are on the street, getting people to sign petitions, whether it will apply to us—whether we will have to go through a pro forma disclosure when we are interacting with people. That might be an interesting process, and not necessarily a bad one—placing us solidly within our communities and having the same responsibilities as others. But it will be a different scenario.

In summary, I do not want to speak for too long. I think this bill will go to the select committee and we can consider the detail of the bill and the possibility of expanding it there. I hope we can move the business before the House tonight a little bit quicker. We have had discussions around being able to drink during the Rugby World Cup. I would also like us to be able to ensure that organ donation is properly supported, so I will finish my speech here.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill in the name of Matt Doocey. I am very happy to take this call in support of this bill, and I congratulate my colleague Matt Doocey on having his bill drawn from the ballot.

The Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill requires anyone collecting signatures, subscriptions, or donations in public places, if collecting for organisations other than registered charities, to disclose if they are being paid to do that activity. If they do not disclose, then they can be fined up to $1,000.

When I see people collecting donations, signatures, or subscriptions in a public place it does not cross my mind straight away that they could be being paid. Then, later on, finding out that they were being paid gives the feeling of being misled. If it is about some kind of donation, then you know straight away that the entirety of that donation is not going to go to the cause you donated it to. If you signed for something, then you know that the person who convinced you to sign was doing it for some extra income and does not actually believe in the cause behind the collection of those signatures.

This bill will not affect organisations or people who recruit volunteers, and that is fair because it means that they are recruiting people who are available to give their time and put effort into the cause that the organisation is trying to benefit.

Often there is a lack of passion when people are paid to do such activities as collecting signatures, donations, or subscriptions in public places. For them, the incentive is just their own monetary gain. They are not required to believe in the cause. The impression that a signature collector is a volunteer is a common one. When there are quite a few people doing that activity, collecting signatures or donations, it gives a misleading impression that there is a lot of interest in that activity. Those people who are collecting signatures and donations stop people who are walking past and try to convince them to donate, so in a way they are paid campaigners.

This bill is about bringing transparency to the process. Registered charities are not required to make this disclosure. They are already required to include information about their income and expenses with their annual returns for all of the different parts of the charity. That is why they are not required to disclose whether people collecting donations for them are paid or not paid. Also, collecting donations for registered charities in public places is quite a common channel, and this is quite an acceptable manner for us as well. The people who work for these charities feel connected and passionate about them. A general observation is that the people who are paid to collect signatures or donations are normally aggressive because they have some targets to be met, compared with volunteers. They want to earn more. This can actually create the impression among people about all those who collect signatures and donations, and then maybe people do not want to stop and talk to people collecting donations because they do not want to face their aggressive approach.

I recognise and highly value the significant contribution that our charitable and voluntary sector makes. These entities range from the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand, to different sports clubs. A very close member of my family has been a volunteer for the Cancer Society of New Zealand for more than 20 years. There is no pressure on him. He does it when he can get away from work, and he does it because he really believes in helping people. He likes to help people who are suffering from cancer. But what happens with a mix of people, those who are paid and those who are not paid, is that it is very hard to identify and know who is paid and who is not paid in that mix.

This bill is about improving transparency and putting a disclosure mechanism in place for the public. Currently, there is no such rule to have this kind of disclosure if people are being paid to collect donations, signatures, or subscriptions. This bill will give more confidence to the people—

Order! The member’s time has expired. Can I just give a bit of general advice—to occasionally address the Chair, and then members are likely to get a signal to wind up or of how long they have got to go.

I would like to acknowledge Mr Doocey tonight. I asked to speak on this bill. It is not my usual specialist subject, but I would like to acknowledge the fact that Mr Doocey had his member’s bill drawn from the ballot. But I would say that it is a bit of a doozy of a bill. I beg your forbearance, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Let me just read from the purpose statement. A lot of what Mr Doocey said in his opening speech I would like to take this time to contest and ask questions about. But it comes from the purpose clause—to bring transparency, which is fantastic, to public collectors who are paid or remunerated to collect or solicit donations, subscriptions, signatures, or other support for an organisation or cause in a public street or place. This is part of the issue—the main issue. It is to ensure that the public is fully informed of all relevant information.

Mr Doocey acknowledged quite a few of the deficiencies in this bill, in terms of that transparency. I will just go into that now. Firstly, New Zealand First would like to acknowledge that, yes, the intent of the bill is right. I think that what you are trying to achieve is appropriate. We would add that we are one of the top five charitable countries in the world. New Zealand First has asserted that volunteers are the fabric of New Zealand society and enable society to continue almost day to day.

Numbers were spoken about tonight—$1.2 billion in the last financial year, with 400,000 New Zealanders contributing to charities. We think that is remarkable, and long may it continue, but here is the rub. We think that Mr Doocey is misinformed. He says that having collectors declare that they are going to be paid will increase transparency. Well, that is a very small part of the costs of a charity and an organisation of this type. What we have seen in the very recent past is the reality that wages are often a very small part of what charities around the world, whether they are registered or not, have decided to allocate to the end beneficiary. So then the question is whether this actually improves transparency. The wages may be part of it, but what charities have chosen to incorporate in costs and retain from their collections varies widely and this, Mr Doocey, is only a very, very small part of that.

The next point that Mr Doocey raised was the Kiwi spirit—this is the intent. It does not sit within the Kiwi spirit that people are being paid to collect money for charities, and then he talks about transparency. Well, where were you when I had my member’s bill a couple of weeks ago—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Excuse me, my apologies. Where was the member when I was asking for exactly the same thing about transparency and about democracy for this nation? It does not seem to sit well and there seems to be a conflict there.

Then there is the other issue that has been raised. I think I heard it only once tonight, but it is a huge issue, actually. It is where the collection takes place and it speaks about public places. The issue there is that if I am in a supermarket carpark or in its entrance or in its foyer, this does not apply. It has no bearing on anything I do, whether I am a registered charity or not. So there is a huge disparity, and I would suggest that it creates huge gaps. Another speaker who spoke earlier, Jan Logie, asked about phone solicitation. So there are a whole lot of questions about consistency in how you would apply this. The issue also is: why not make it apply to everyone—why not a registered charity as well?

Order! The member’s time has expired.

It is a pleasure to speak on this member’s bill, the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill. I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague Matt Doocey. It is remarkable that he would have a bill pulled out of the ballot so quickly, and I wondered whether it was Bedian luck or the luck of a Bedian that has led to this fortuitous event. But whatever it is, Matt, I cannot become a Bedian, I suspect, but perhaps you could give me some advice on how I might get some luck going my way in that department. I have to say after hearing a previous speaker that I am confused—or perhaps he is—on a number of issues that were raised there, but I will come to that in a moment.

New Zealanders, as has been stated earlier on in the piece, are a very generous bunch. We give, as my colleague pointed out, $40 on average per person per month to charities, and that is a phenomenal amount of money when you think about it. But that relies on people’s confidence in the people and the charity that they are giving that money to—that the money going through to the charity is going to achieve the things that it is being collected on the basis of. I do not think that there is anything wrong with people being paid to solicit money on behalf of a charity or other organisation, or, indeed, to solicit signatures for a petition. But there is a rider on that: so long as the person who is being approached and solicited for money is aware of that and they can make that decision. It is about transparency, and unfortunately we have not really had that until today—or until this bill comes through, and it looks like it is going to be supported across the House to go through to a select committee.

A number of the questions that were raised by the previous speaker, Fletcher Tabuteau, I think are valid questions—or some of them were, at least—but the select committee is the place and the process in Parliament where those particular issues can be addressed and fully canvassed. That is where bills get their polishing and get all the bugs out of them, hopefully, before they come back to the House. I think that is where this bill should go—to the select committee—and I will certainly be supporting it to that stage.

There was a point made earlier about when you put your coin in a bucket, for example, and the person then has to chase you down the street and tell people that they will actually be paid for collecting that money. It quite clearly states here that those people must be told before any solicitation or collection occurs. We have talked also about signatures on a petition. It may very well change a person’s decision as to whether they are supporting a petition or not if they find that the people soliciting for those signatures are being paid. So I think it is right and proper that we should have that transparency.

Most of us in the House, I suspect, have had plenty of contact with charitable organisations and public-good organisations, and most of us, I suspect, have done a lot of work on behalf of those organisations, raising money for the local sports club with a bucket or selling sausages at a barbecue on behalf of a charity. In all of those situations, certainly in my case, the people whom I have been getting money off or asking for money to support those causes have been well aware that I am not being paid, and well aware that the money is going directly to those organisations that I am working on behalf of. I think it is a great thing that New Zealanders keep their confidence in those particular organisations and that we really celebrate our volunteers and our voluntary organisations and the way that they are funded in New Zealand.

There have been some examples of behaviour that this bill will help to alleviate. Certainly, there were a couple of monks and a nun—or they were people masquerading as monks and a nun—in Auckland who were arrested or chased off the streets for soliciting for money. So it is with great pleasure that I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

I want to take just a short call on the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill and, first of all, congratulate Mr Doocey on being a new member and pulling this out of the ballot with tinny luck. To someone who has listened to these debates in the House for a little while it has all the appearance of one of those bills that he was given when he came into the House as a new member and told: “Mr Doocey, this is your bill.” He delivered it without any passion and without any understanding, really, of what was going on. I made contact with his office today. I said: “The Labour Party actually would like to support this but we are not sure what it was all about. Could you send us something?”. So he sent through the Bills Digest, which exemplified to me that, actually, this had not been given a great deal of thought and that Mr Doocey had stood up on an issue that had well and truly passed, which was that the Green Party had been collecting signatures with paid volunteers or people who were being paid. The National Government had put this up and Mr Doocey had the misfortune of picking up this bill. It was given to him by the whips, it was stuck in the ballot, and, unfortunately, it was pulled out.

Actually, when you look at this bill, it is an answer looking for a problem. There is not actually a problem there. It is something that is trying to resolve something and, quite frankly, nobody knows what the problem is. When you look at the agencies and the various voluntary sector people who will be caught up in this, there are, in fact, so many exceptions that it is very hard to find who will actually be caught up in this net and how the legislation will give us this so-called confidence that the last speaker, Stuart Smith, talked about when we address our voluntary sector. That is not just my opinion; it is also the opinion of the Fundraising Institute of New Zealand, which said about the bill that its “concern over this well-meaning but generally unhelpful bill is that it misunderstands the role and availability of volunteers and criticises our moves to professionalise charity fundraising which provides better value for donations raised for charities.” That is the crux of the problem. Those charities out there are trying to professionalise, and all this does is sail right across the middle of it without really understanding or without even talking to the various charities to ask them what the real problem is. Labour will support this bill to the select committee, if only—if only—just to have people like the Fundraising Institute of New Zealand come along here to the select committee and explain what we really need, as opposed to the manufactured problem and solution that Mr Doocey has come up with in the House today.

I rise to take a very short call in support of this wonderful member from Waimakariri, Mr Matt Doocey. I have to actually echo previous members who have shown their jealousy of his success in the members’ bills ballot. I have had a member’s bill in the ballot for I do not know how many years, and I am hoping that perhaps it might actually get drawn fairly soon. I too will actually seek the luck this way, Mr Doocey.

The Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill deals with a matter that sits at the back of the minds of many hard-working New Zealanders. The member who has just sat down, Mr David Shearer, was rather uncharitable in his comments about how Matt Doocey might have just picked up the bill off the National Party. I could be just as uncharitable and comment about the two fish that he held up. I am sure he actually got advice that that was a good thing—but I will not go there, otherwise I might in get into trouble with you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

This bill addresses the concern that many of us actually have when we go to give money to an organisation soliciting in a public place. Admittedly, other members have raised the issue that perhaps it is the issue of telephone canvassing or other means by which they actually collect. When we give to a charity, often we want to know that that money that we give is going to the purpose that it is supposed to be going to, and not used to actually line the pockets of people who run it as a business. We have had instances where people who actually work for charity get phone calls from people who say: “Oh I’d like to actually maybe reduce my sub or increase my sub.” And the callers then realise that they were not paying to the charity that they thought they were paying into, and that it was actually a third party who had maybe changed some of the spelling of the charitable organisation and collected on their behalf, perhaps, in a fraudulent manner.

These are the kinds of things we are trying to prevent with this bill, I am guessing, Mr Doocey. So I am very much in support of this bill going to a select committee, to hear from the public as to what they think and how far this bill should actually go. I commend this bill to the House.

Can I first say that I am very honoured and humbled to receive the support around this Chamber tonight. It is great to hear people joining in support—that the intent of the bill is right, and it is only right that the bill will now go to the select committee. It will be great to review the scope of the bill; there have been a lot of suggestions tonight, so I am looking forward to that. I must say, as someone who comes from a background of working in mental health and who has worked a lot with charities and volunteers, it is great to work with people who want to make a difference in their communities and in people’s lives, and I am more than happy to support them with this bill. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Social Services Committee.