Dyson Ruth: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Dyson Ruth: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17664] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
: 
 I am delighted to have the opportunity to take a call on the community and voluntary sector part of this debate because it is an opportunity to pay tribute to the 75 percent of New Zealanders who say that they volunteer in our communities in one way or another. There are 97000 community organisations operating in New Zealand. If it were an Olympics we would win gold medals for setting up and operating community organisations—97000 of those organisations run entirely by volunteers. That is a huge commitment from New Zealand citizens to supporting their community in one way or another and I do not think it is something this Committee should take for granted. I think it is something we should respect and value and we should ensure that our central government policies work alongside those people in our community who give so much of their time their energy and often their money—either through lost opportunity or through direct giving. This debate is a very good opportunity to pay that respect. 
At the end of 1999 when Labour was elected to lead the Government we made a clear conscious decision to try to rebuild the relationship that central government had had with the community and voluntary sector. We set up a representative group—a working group of people throughout the country—to tell us how we could rebuild that relationship. The Pathways to Partnership report that came back indicated to us that the sector was burnt out frustrated and bordering on angry. There was a high level of mistrust between the community and voluntary sector and central government because the late 1980s and the entire 1990s had been fuelled by an individualised personal success model rather than by collaborative community-driven respectful relationships. The competitive tendering that Judy Turner from United Future mentioned was a critical part of that frustration and mistrust. It pitted one organisation against another. I am very pleased to have seen the developments that were driven by that working party’s report to the Government; it has led us to many changes. 
We established the Office of the Community and Voluntary Sector so that we had ongoing engagement between central government and the sector that would drive changes not just in our relationship but also in the behaviour of all Government departments. That is underpinned by a public document called the  
Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship 
 which drives the relationship between the work of central government and that of the community and voluntary sector. We are carrying on that work now. In fact the Association of Non-Governmental Organisations of Aotearoa has recently been commissioned to review the implementation of the recommendations in the  
Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship 
 so that we can be confident that it is delivering in the way that was originally intended. 
Judy Turner also mentioned some of the legislative changes that have come about as a result of United Future’s agreement with the Labour-Progressive Government. The change to the tax incentives for donations is a recent one and next year we will see the introduction of payroll giving which will not just see more direct support being given to those organisations through financial contributions but also help to generate better respect from us as individuals for the people who do that community work so well up and down the country in a variety of ways. 
Judy Turner also mentioned the Pathways to Partnership investment in essential social services. The points she made are extremely relevant and valid in that the collaboration and the rebuilding of capacity within the social services sector will really change the nature of the operations. I can say that from my many discussions with social service providers throughout the country they are more than up to having that debate and to changing the way that they operate. They were driven in the 1990s to change the basic value and principle system of their organisations to try to meet a contracted need when actually what all of them are set up to do and what drives them to operate is to provide what the community needs—not what a contract might deliver. 
I conclude this contribution by commenting on National’s policy because Paula Bennett continues to misrepresent it to the House. I think she does her leader a disservice when she misrepresents what he actually said. There has never been a commitment from National or from John Key to full funding of essential social services. What John Key actually said in his Plunket speech which I have tabled in Parliament is that National would encourage community organisations that put in a bid in a competitive tender round to put in that bid at a fully funded level. That not only demonstrates the completely different perspectives within the National Party on its policy—Paula Bennett saying National supports full funding and John Key saying it would encourage bids made as part of a competitive tendering round to be on a fully funded basis—but also demonstrates that he knows nothing about the community and voluntary sector or social service providers let alone how an organisation might win a bid in a competitive tendering round. Every single provider knows that it would not win a contract subject to a straight competitive tender if it put in a fully funded bid without knowing what the other organisations were likely to do. We know that with competitive tendering organisations underbid and that would end up driving the quality of services down to the level they got to in the 1990s. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.