Incorporated Societies Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Incorporated Societies Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. The legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

On behalf of the Minister, I move, That the Incorporated Societies Bill be now read a second time.

The Incorporated Societies Act, as it currently is, is a vital piece of legislation that supports civil society. It supports our liberal democratic ways that we have in this country. But it was enacted in 1908, which is well more than 100 years ago, more than 110 years ago, and it was well overdue for reconsideration. And so I’m very grateful, on behalf of the Minister, for the work that the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee have done on the Incorporated Societies Bill to refashion the framework that we have for incorporated societies in this country.

There are literally thousands, tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of organisations representing all sorts of interests and endeavours in life. The reason we have this legislative framework is to protect the members, but, actually, also to protect those on the committees, those wielding the extent of executive power within those incorporated societies, so that they can make decisions free from the risk of personal liability, although not responsibility. We need a piece of legislation that makes sure that it reflects the modern mores of both accountability and responsibility, but allows people to get on and do those things that they enjoy doing when they come together with like-minded citizens to do that.

The select committee has made a number of changes. There was considerable support for the rewriting of the legislation, but the bill, in its current form, prohibits incorporated societies from being carried on for financial gain, and, of course, that continues. Under clause 23 of the bill, the society is deemed to be carried on for financial gain if members distribute any gain or profit or assets that they have, and, of course, that is an absolute no-no for an incorporated society. I know that one of the things I was very keen to see is a change in the law—because it’s not unusual for different groups of people in different parts of the country to form together for the same activity and then for those groups in different parts of the country to want to come together, and the ability to amalgamate different incorporated societies all with the same object and with the same activity to come together without falling afoul of tax laws. This provision about benefiting members has been very important, and that is now provided for in the bill. Some societies who submitted on the bill were concerned that the way this non - profit-making clause was drafted might prevent them offering hardship grants or scholarships and what have you, and so it has been amended to make sure that those sorts of benefits, even if they benefit a member, are legitimate in the pursuit of the objects of the particular society.

Another area is umbrella societies, or federations, perhaps—national organisations whose members are themselves different societies, and there may be a need for some cash that goes to the national organisation to go to some of the regional organisations or the federated members. And so that is not prohibited in this—members being able to gain financially as part of an incorporated society.

The second set of changes relate to the financial reporting of incorporated societies. Under the bill, societies that qualify as being small would benefit from that exemption. I know, for most members of incorporated societies, the prospect of an annual general meeting is the highlight of the calendar year! And being able to go through the accounts and find out how the executive committee has spent the money, how they’ve raised the money, where the money has gone, which loans have been taken out, what loans have been repaid—these are all vital matters in the lives of many people and in the life of our communities and societies. I think the provisions for this in the bill have been modernised, are now relevant to the 21st century and to what it means to be in an incorporated society in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 21st century.

The select committee has recommended lifting the thresholds for the exemption to qualify as small and therefore not required to produce these audited accounts. This will mean that hundreds of amateur sports clubs, in particular, around the country won’t be required to hire an accountant and pay the associated fees. And I know, being involved in the periphery in a fledgling sport—the sport of floorball—in New Zealand where little societies are coming together now to form these teams, and are doing a great job, but they are of a size that it just does not make sense to have to go out and pay an accountant to present accounts. In every group of 10 or 20 people in New Zealand, there’s usually somebody who is sufficiently mathematically inclined and accounting-concepts literate to be able to pull together a set of relevant accounts that gives people an idea about what money’s been spent and how it’s been spent and where the money is.

So those changes have been made. Altogether, I think, we can see that we are now developing, this House is now developing, a piece of incorporated societies legislation that is relevant to the 21st century, that will, I think, engender great excitement, great hope, and great confidence in people being able to come together and enjoy their like-minded activities with each other and benefit New Zealand as a whole. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Yeah, Mr Speaker, thank you very much. National will be supporting this legislation, in part because of the significant changes that were made during the select committee process to make sure that it wasn’t an onerous or overbearing cost through bureaucracy on incorporated societies, particularly the small ones. We had to strike a balance between making sure that incorporated societies were meeting their obligations to their members, but, at the same time, the cost of meeting that obligation in some cases, as the legislation was originally drafted, might well have been greater than the income or expenditure of that incorporated society, and that would defeat the purpose of this.

We’re all for accountability, but reasonable accountability when one considers that there is a vast range of societies that have incorporated with different interests. An example of this is the rugby union, with income of over $150 million a year. The New Zealand Rugby Union is an incorporated society, right down to the Bank’s Peninsula War Memorial Society, that had an income in the 2016 year of around $5,000. And without the changes that were pushed for by National and the committee, that, I must say, took some persuading of the Government and the Minister, but I’m very pleased that we were able to have a meeting of the minds to set these costs aside. In the case of the Banks Peninsula War Memorial Society, much of that expenditure would have been eaten up, or doubled, in fact, when it came to them having to account.

The Minister, when he spoke, was talking about umbrella organisations and bodies and how they might have members all over the country, and they might want to pay money out to them, and this now is allowed. Of course, to be very clear, what he didn’t say is he was talking about unions, and the unions were given a carve-out in the original legislation. They came before the committee and they made the case to the committee, and the Government decided to keep that in. Look, if it is good enough for a union to have a carve-out when it comes to their responsibilities under the incorporated societies, to be provided by the Labour Government, it is probably likely to be OK for that carve-out to be given to other organisations as well. But, sadly, it doesn’t appear, if one reads the legislation, that that’s what’s happened here.

So I just want to be very, very clear: in the Minister introducing this, saying that the Government has done a good job in ensuring that, you know, where different bodies of people around the country that come together occasionally want to be able to pass money on to others are not caught by any income tax rules, he was talking about unions, the very unions that are affiliated to the Labour Party.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The member’s wrong about that.

Well, he says we’re wrong, but there goes the anger of a former union leader, who, in this case, was reading from his notes but didn’t read all of the bill as the committee went through.

There are around 23,000 incorporated societies in New Zealand, not hundreds of thousands, as the Minister suggested. Of those, though, around 10,000, or slightly more, are also charities. So there was a balancing act needed between the responsibilities and obligations of a society that is under the Charities Act but also falls under this Act. In fact, the committee, all members, spent a lot of time considering this, and I think we got the balance right. We got the balance right, whereas we tried to line up responsibilities, particularly around reporting, but took the position that if an organisation is a charity, they have the benefit of being completely tax-free, whereas incorporated societies, through their donations or other income, are not, and, therefore, for charities, there is a greater necessity to report than some of the smaller, incorporated societies under this Act. I think, again, that we got that balance right.

The final point I’d make is, as I alluded to earlier, the need to make sure that this legislation wasn’t overly bureaucratic or costly upon smaller societies, and the legislation, as drafted and agreed by Cabinet, said that an incorporated society that in any one of any two years had more than $10,000 worth of expenditure or held $30,000 worth of assets would have to account to a higher standard than those below. Generally, it means if you had below $10,000 worth of expenditure, or no assets above $30,000, it was almost cash accounting. We’re talking about some of the smaller societies in New Zealand. We took quite some time in committee to question officials on this. In fact, the report back of the bill was pushed back, at least the deliberation of the bill in committee was pushed back a number of times to get this right.

National came forward to make the case that, actually, we thought the threshold could be higher, and I would like to thank all members of the committee and the Minister for taking the time to work through this, because we landed in a position where all members of the committee agreed. And, in essence, it is that if in a consecutive two years an incorporated society has more than $50,000 worth of expenditure, not income but expenditure, they must report to a higher standard. And we got rid of the asset test, and the reason for this is, actually, if you have a fixed asset, a building, actually, the incorporated society itself, or its executive, has to go through many processes before it can make changes. If there was a society that owned its own war memorial hall, with a value of over $30,000, say, as a capital value, but it had that $5,000 worth of expenditure each year, they would have had to report to a higher standard, which would have cost them $3,000 or maybe $4,000. So we refocused this and said, “Where is a capital asset not a liquid asset?” There is no threshold, and $50,000 worth of expenditure or liquid asset—i.e., if they had money in the bank—then they would have to report. I think that balance is about right.

I’d like to thank all members of the committee for bearing with us, because we did extend this week after week after week, and sent the officials away to do more work and get more advice for us, and, finally, to recognise the chair of the committee, who worked very hard on the Minister, and, I think, persuaded him—persuaded the Minister that Cabinet maybe had not received all of the information it should have, or the officials had been overzealous in trying to capture every single problem that might be out there, and in their desire, or search, to catch the one, they were burdening, you know, maybe 15,000 incorporated societies with greater costs, but no greater accountability to its members.

So to the chair, Jamie Strange, who worked very, very hard on this and continued to badger the Minister—he did a good job. And what I would say to the Prime Minister, if she’s listening in Auckland on her private visit up there at the moment, if the current Minister is destined for greater things, Jamie Strange would be a great person to take his place as a Minister. Jamie, I hope I haven’t ruined your career there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise proudly on behalf of the Labour side in terms of supporting this Incorporated Societies Bill in the second reading. Could I just start by thanking the member who has just resumed his seat, the Hon Todd McClay, for all of the constructive conversations and the rigorous debate that we’ve had in the select committee process on this bill. Like he has mentioned, we’ve had many, many, many, many conversations about where this line should fall. I guess it’s, for me, a balance of practical considerations in terms of which incorporated societies should be reporting and what type of reporting they should be doing. I’ve now learnt a lot more about accrual accounting and cash accounting than I would care to think. I appreciate my flatmate, who is a chartered accountant, and I don’t think we’d ever have imagined we would spend our lockdown debating this issue—but thank you, Martin.

Like the Minister has mentioned today as well, unions are not a cover. Every single incorporated society who wishes to provide scholarships for their members is largely encouraged to do so. Every incorporated society that has that will can do so now under this bill, and I’m proud of that change.

As has been mentioned, there are almost 24,000 incorporated societies in this nation, and they definitely are a really integral and important part of the make-up of the fabric of our society. I really enjoyed hearing from the submitters on this bill because it just has made me realise how important it is to get this bill right, and hence the long time that we took in deliberating. It’s because of incorporated societies that we are a healthier society, that we are a better regulated society, that we are a better organised society, and that we are a more community-based society. I’m really proud of the fact that this bill and this update of this bill will make sure that not only do we modernise the legislation but we also make provision for the times when things do get hard—and, unavoidably, some of these volunteering organisations might. So to be able to talk through those problems and have somewhere for people to complain and then to resolve those issues is inherently important. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too stand in support of this bill, the Incorporated Societies Bill. It has been encouraging to hear the commentary from across the House around this bill but I thought, in order to put it into context, to remind the House that, actually, the bill that this is replacing was originally passed in 1908. We are talking 113 years ago, so, obviously, this is well overdue for a bit of a rewrite. But I thought, to put it in context around the society that the legislators were living in, that I would have a look at what was going on in 1908 and come up with some of the highlights from that era.

The main trunk railway line opened in that year, which was a massive undertaking in this country. We also got our first Olympic gold medal in London—sorry, it was a bronze, but it was our first Olympic medal—

💬 Hon Member: In what sport?

He was a walker, Harry Kerr. But one of the most significant—

💬 SPEAKER: Walking for Australia.

Pardon?

💬 SPEAKER: Walking for Australia—Australasia, I think.

Oh, OK. Thank you. I’m impressed by that. But one of the most significant—

💬 SPEAKER: I can’t remember it directly, just to be clear.

I hope that’s coming off my time! Thank you for that helpful interjection, Mr Speaker! I was going to go on to say that one of the most significant events that happened in West Coast - Tasman was the Blackball miners’ strike that happened in that year. At that time, it was the longest strike in New Zealand’s history; 11 weeks it lasted. And then, when we went on to the biggest strike, actually, Blackball was the last of those unions to go back to work as well. So they’re famous for digging their toes in.

Now, Ernest Rutherford, also, you know, the father of nuclear physics, was awarded his Nobel Prize for chemistry. A huge achievement for this country was the population growth: we reached 1 million people in 1908. And, of course, we had a general election that year and, no surprise, back in 1908, no women were elected. In fact, 25 years it took for our first woman to be elected. So in terms of the Incorporated Societies Bill, we have come a long way and, without dragging and kicking this piece of legislation to the select committee, it has, I think, reached a really good outcome.

As many of the speakers have said, one of the main aims, of course, is to make sure that it’s not a huge encumbrance on some of our smaller organisations. I did not sit on the select committee, but I do have a great interest in this bill because, of course, it impacts on many of the volunteer organisations across the country. And, as we all know, those organisations and the volunteers that keep them going are simply that: they are volunteers. And some of the huge, you know, administration burden that many of them face was always front of mind, obviously, for the select committee to make sure that we didn’t actually drive people out of being willing volunteers into some of these organisations.

It was probably coincidental that this bill is 113 years old and the select committee received 113 submissions, so one for every year of its existence. And that’s certainly no reflection on the number of organisations that this bill will impact on. So in terms of some of the select committee feedback, they obviously cover a wide variety, and I’ve picked out a couple that were of particular interest to me. Of course, Volunteering New Zealand had some really good submissions—ideas and feedback—that, obviously, the committee has taken heed of. But another one that’s probably, as Todd McClay mentioned before, you know, some of those smaller organisations—but we also have societies that are umbrella organisations for other smaller groups, and they’re very important to the structures as well. One is the New Zealand Federation of Motoring Clubs, and I didn’t realise this until I read their submission, but they actually also are an umbrella group for the hot-rod clubs around New Zealand, of which I have a particular interest. But we have a whole lot of others that we know are core to our communities. We have our sports clubs—you know, our rugby and cricket and league—but we also have other, you know, recreational groups that look after reserves or parks and, you know, even the astronomical association put in a submission. But then we have the bigger ones like Federated Farmers and the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association all having an interest in what is in this legislation.

Now, in the original bill there were quite a few gaps, and a lot of those gaps have been filled over time through case law. But, of course, with a lot of very small organisations and societies, taking something to court to get an outcome was not always possible, simply because of the cost of going down that path. But also, as I mentioned before, many of them are operated by volunteers, and that’s not what they got involved in the organisation for. So it is imperative that we, as legislators, put in place these types of laws that will fill the gaps that have not been filled in the case law over time.

I did take note that speakers have talked about grants—hardship grants, scholarship grants—that incorporated societies can make, and I was particularly helped out by a local group in my own hometown where they managed a couple of scholarship grants for me. So to have that clarified in this is extremely helpful from their point of view as well.

But one of the things that this bill does make really clear is around the declaration of conflicts of interest and making sure that they are well recorded. I did note that one example that was used around the use of grants from these societies, and being really clear about conflict of interest—the terrible example that I read was around, you know, one particular small sports club that sold a building worth $350,000 and distributed the income from that to their members and then, of course, were found to be wanting in their decision. It took a court case to actually find that the decisions were not quite kosher, and they had to try, then, and recover that $350,000 from the individuals that had received it and, sadly, two of those individuals had to declare bankruptcy as a consequence of that.

So, very important that we do have those rules and protections in place, not just for the society but perhaps for those recipients of some of those grants. I’m very pleased to hear that the threshold for payments has been lifted to $50,000. I was concerned about the asset value because, of course, they are fluctuating and, you know, having to account for depreciation, perhaps, would have been cumbersome. So that is a very good outcome for that, and my understanding is that that now sits in regulation outside of the bill so that we don’t have to change the legislation in order to adjust those levels, because we don’t know what $50,000 might mean in five years or so. You know, the rate of inflation, it could be worth the same as an ice cream in five years. So, very good to see that has the flexibility, outside of legislation, to be adjusted.

But just in closing, I’d like to just have a note to the Government that it’s very important that the changes to this regulation are communicated well to the societies across the country. We want to make sure that they are well informed about their new rights and obligations, and it’s incumbent on us to make sure that the information is clear, that it’s distributed well, because we need them to carry on in the roles that they are doing, because it’s so valuable to us as a country. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Incorporated Societies Bill, and I thank Maureen Pugh for her contribution, her history lesson. Riveting—electrifying, in fact, that speech. Thank you so much. I was hoping for maybe some reflection on some of your members in 1908, and what they were doing at that time, but we didn’t get time for that. That’s OK.

I was on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and we work well together. I did hear the Hon Todd McClay saying that they had to fight for that threshold to change, but I know my colleagues on this side fought for it, too. In fact, I think we led the charge on that to ensure that we got it right.

When we first embarked with our advisers on this piece of legislation, I vividly remember them talking about the 1908 legislation. They said it was very much around the birth and the death of a society, but there was nothing about the life, which is where it has been complicated over the years. So, very much, this change in legislation, this bringing it into the 21st century, is around the birth, the life, and, if it needs to be, the death of an incorporated society. We’ve worked hard and will continue to work hard as a committee. Also, I want to acknowledge Jamie Strange, the chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Incorporated societies, as we’ve heard, can take anything from a $2,000 or $3,000 community group through to millions and millions of dollars. I really want to acknowledge them, because I know many of them—many of them—are volunteer organisations, are community playgroups, are potters’ groups, and are groups that support their local community. So, in finishing my speech today, I just want to say thank you to all of our volunteers, who support and keep our nation running. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. After starting the day with data and statistics, it’s very exciting to stand here again so soon to talk about another kaupapa close to my heart, which is community organising and the legal structures that support it. Much as case law has built up around this ancient bill, over 23,000 tangata whenua community and voluntary organisations will breathe easier with this significant update. So, many thanks to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for your work in bringing this to the House.

The Greens envisage a strong and independent tangata whenua community and voluntary sector that contributes in ecologically and socially sustainable ways to enhance our social, environmental, cultural, physical, mental, spiritual, and economic wellbeing. We need good laws that will help sustain that and not constrain it. We’re pleased that the bill clarifies that an incorporated society may express its tikanga, its kawa, and its culture in its constitution. We note that the Law Commission’s report of 2013 recommended this, but, of course, what’s eight years waiting in the scale of 113? While Tikanga may not have been specifically excluded, as a person who’s written and edited many, many constitutions over the years, it was always very clear that that stuff was additional; it was never core to our legal documents in our legal entity.

The Greens have principles of appropriate decision-making and non-violence written into our charter, so we particularly welcome that this bill would clearly lay out the requirements around addressing conflicts of interest and dispute resolution, because many people are conflict-averse, and passive-aggression is not uncommon—or maybe that’s just the committees and boards that I have been on! We hope this criteria will help every organisation who has struggled to address those issues without training in conflict resolution or restorative practices, and without the law insisting that proper processes be in place for it.

Finally, we wish to address financial reporting–the bugbear of every treasurer everywhere. The Greens welcome, absolutely, standardising transparent and clearer financial reporting, especially for those organisations with assets but low cash flow. We note that that change will help up to 60 percent of the sector, including iwi and hapū organisations where our marae might be worth $1 million or $2 million but there’s only $20,000 or $30,000 in the bank. The many, many thousands of volunteers who could do without the unnecessary paperwork will thank us for that alone. I look forward to this bill coming into effect, and I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you to the Minister Mr Little for his Obamaesque explanation of this bill about hope and change and, you know, modernisation. The bill itself is like a Jeffrey Archer novel. It’s got six parts, 41,000 words; it’s almost like a novel. I’ve never seen the ministry of business development—I wish they’d concentrate on foreign direct investment by the way—produce something that’s so technocratic around what is a very important part of New Zealand society. I’m convinced, given the number of submissions, that only 1 percent of the societies actually replied, that the Government hasn’t brought along the organisations because (a) they either don’t understand the law; secondly, they’ve got no experience to review it in their organisations; and, thirdly, they’re just missing the nuances of what is probably something that should have went to the social and wellbeing committee as well as the technocrats.

So there’s, sort of, three questions around the duties of officers in managing those conflicts. We’re really pleased that the committee has managed to make those amendments. But it’s still a very financial-orientated solution to what is a law that originally had 11,000 words, which is a lot smaller. So how you bridge that gap between local chess clubs and the New Zealand Rugby Union and Federated Farmers is a challenge I still don’t think we’ve met. If you look, there’s four years now to introduce this and get people deregistered and form new societies, which is going to be very painful out there. Some of us may be here to see it, and some of us maybe not. But we believe, at the ACT Party, that keeping it simple, while it should have been the basis of this bill, and it’s become something of a monster for something that, I don’t think, societies are going to really understand.

So congratulations to the committee for getting this through. We will support the bill out of probity and modernisation. But there are some unintended consequences here that I don’t think we’ve really thought through. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege, actually, to take a call on the Incorporated Societies Bill. Thank you to the member across the House, Maureen Pugh, who took us through a history lesson as to what was happening in 1908. It was actually really clear that this is a really old, old piece of legislation.

Throughout my community work, I’ve been involved in a number of incorporated societies, including the mighty Northern United Rugby Union Club or norths, as we know them in Porirua, and also established tag clubs for rugby league tag. But the benefit was, when I was drafting constitutions for some of these clubs, that I’ve had a background in law and I’ve had a background in accounting. So I was able to ensure that there were dispute resolution clauses to ensure, when the society wound up, where those assets were going to and then being able to actually help our treasurers put together the reporting for it. But that was done because we had someone who specialised in that area. Not all incorporated societies have that ability. Not all incorporated societies have lawyers, accountants, or CEOs of other charitable organisations on their boards, and some of them do amazing work in our community. So it’s really good to see that this bill fills in some of those gaps, such as disputes resolution.

I commend the committee for some of the recommendations that they’ve put forward, and I hope to see them come through, particularly around the societies that qualify as small. It’s good to see that the asset threshold was lifted, because if you think about, say, a small rugby club, they probably own all the jerseys. The jerseys probably cost $100 per jersey. So if you’ve got 10 teams, you’re already, you know, over a certain threshold, you’ve got the gear bags, you’ve got the balls, you’ve got the cones, and then possibly they might have a building—already they’re over that $30,000 asset threshold. So it’s really good to see that the committee listened to submitters and lifted that up. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a real privilege, also, to take a short call on this Incorporated Societies Bill. I do want to acknowledge the Minister. I want to acknowledge the select committee. I wasn’t part of that, but having read the reports, this is obviously all really good stuff and common-sense things to be doing.

We talked about it before. There’s 23,000 incorporated societies across New Zealand. They range from large ones like New Zealand Rugby, right down to one like the Banks Peninsula War Memorial, where I actually spend a lot of time on devotion, on the way to Akaroa each year at the campground there. They only have $5,000 or $6,000 worth of revenue each year. And you can see the amazing work that these small and large organisations do all across New Zealand, when you travel around, and it’s all staffed by people who are wonderful volunteers.

Mr Speaker, I want to put it to you—I know you’re a gardener, but if you’re actually free on 6 March in 2022, next year, beautiful sunny day, we have something out in Botany, in East Auckland, called the Brit & Euro Car Club. It was started by a Renaissance man, a bit like yourself, Richard Waugh. He’s a Methodist minister. He’s also an aviation historian. He’s the chaplain for the Erebus victims and families, and he’s also started this car club, and it’s basically just for British and Euro cars. I myself have a 1966 Riley Elf, and I would like to get it up there. It’s red, but I’d like to get it painted blue at some point. But that aside, you can see the mighty Escort, you can see—

💬 SPEAKER: No, keep it original.

—sorry—the Rolls-Royce. But it’s an incredible event, and it started off just a few years back, and Richard and the team formed an incorporated society, and they’ve now got 1,200 exhibitors there. They had over 10,000 people come from all over Auckland to come and see this last year, phenomenal activity for the local community and just a wonderful event. In fact, my colleague Naisi Chen was there as well, and I think you could testify to how good an event it actually was.

But as we said, these rules are very outdated. We got a great history lesson from Maureen Pugh. Again, the Speaker was right, yet again. There were three New Zealanders in that 1908 team that was an Australasian team—not just a New Zealand team or an Australian team; an Australasian team. Thankfully, we have stopped doing that now. There’s nothing worse than being part of Australia, I would put it to you all!

But what I’d say is it’s been outdated, and probably the only criticism I’d say is it’s taken us a long time to get this really basic, common-sense thing done. We started the conversation in 2015; we’re now sitting here in 2021. It will be a slow implementation. And I’ll just put it to you, if you’re out there doing community work as a community organiser or you’re in a business world, maybe six years to get something done like this wouldn’t be kind of acceptable, but it is fair that we have a modern law, it’s fit for purpose, it’s up to scratch, and it’s actually really helpful for all those volunteers that are deeply involved in it.

At the heart of it, this bill is doing something, I think, quite important. It’s distinguishing between the really large incorporated societies and the much smaller ones, and it’s actually changing the cost and compliance burden and obligations that are on each of them and making it proportionate. I think that’s a really fantastic thing. So you see the large organisations, yes, they should be compliant with generally accepted accounting practice laws and principles, but, actually, smaller ones have much less compliance as a result. We’ve got smaller society thresholds. There was a good conversation around that from both sides of the House around why that’s been a very good thing, having operating expenses and also revenue less than $50,000 to distinguish you as a small society. And it’s important because those societies lack those resources and expertise that make that compliance so difficult.

So it is really a fantastic bill. It’s going to make a big difference to so many people and so many volunteers—the people who wake up, get out each morning, and decide they want to make their community a better place. And we all know we’ll get the community and the country we ultimately deserve, but it requires each of us as citizens to step up, and we see citizens stepping up and volunteering in this way. This is an incredibly good bill for New Zealand. It’s a great piece of legislation that’s going to deliver fantastic outcomes.

I do want to say, before I commend the bill to this House, that I do want to state in this House that I am backing the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes, who are playing South Canterbury in Timaru this weekend. I think they’ll win big. They are well coached. They’ve got a great team around them, and I’m looking forward—they’re playing in the Meads Cup and it’s the final this weekend, so I wish them all the very best. And, on that note, I support and commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my honour to speak again in the House this morning, and, in this particular instance, on the Incorporated Societies Bill. Can I start by acknowledging the wonderful organisations at the heart of our communities—whether that be in sport or in social service—that this particular bill relates to.

I had the privilege over the last three years to lead out the Birkdale Beach Haven community incorporated society. It’s a wonderful organisation where we’ve worked very, very hard to build a governance model and a team of members and staff that reflect our community, that the initiatives that we roll out meet the needs and are responsive to our diverse and growing community on the North Shore of Auckland, but most of all that we continue the kaupapa to have community-led arrangements and initiatives happening in our local backyard, and particularly for our tamariki locally. So I love that particular project.

But when I think back to some of the work that we do, and it tends to be AGM month at the moment, and, like other MPs, you’ve probably attended a number over the last two weeks as everyone geared up for Zoom AGMs when the green light went by.

But this particular bill supports organisations like mine and other incorporated societies to have a much clearer view in terms of what they need to achieve, what they need to report on, and recognition of who they are in modern age. When I go back to the ages of 1908 and we talk about pounds and schillings in this outdated bill, I am quite grateful that we are updating this particular piece of work. I know that it has limitations for our incorporated societies currently, because they are small in many instances, but many of them want to modernise and we want to ensure that we are removing the barriers that we need to in this particular instance.

So this bill replaces the very outdated Incorporated Societies Act of 1908. It is aimed to be fit for purpose and to be modern. I also want to acknowledge not only the 24,000 incorporated societies across Aotearoa but also organisations like our local marae. I acknowledge what member Kerekere said—that many of our marae have assets in the millions but not much cash in the bank. So let’s make it as easy as possible, as simple for volunteers to manage these societies, with the efficiencies we need. So, without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

Members, we’ve reached the time where we’d normally go to lunch, but I can see that Mr O’Connor is very keen to speak. If he was, I could take leave for this bill to be completed before we do break for the day. Do people want to do that or do they want to wait in anticipation for Mr O’Connor?

💬 Simon O’Connor: I’m more interested in lunch.

Sorry?

💬 Simon O’Connor: My enthusiasm is more for lunch than speaking.

OK. Well, I will declare this day completed. The House stands adjourned until 2 o’clock today.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 12.57 p.m. (Wednesday).