SpeechDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): The opportunity to provide a modern framework for the legal governance of incorporated societies is a great thing having been involved with them. Sitting with jugs of beer and peanuts to nut out what happens over a year is the basic reality for a lot of the smaller entities that are out there but I guess it's different if you are a bigger organisation. The ACT Party supports the bill but it also supports the position of the Hon Judith Collins in terms of the most cumbersome aspect which is the burden that's placed on the officers of these societies. So I think and I hope that the Minister would also take that into consideration as being something that the future must assess. There will be rationalisation of organisations now with this. We feel that the balance has been struck between the accounting aspects of a big organisation versus a smaller organisation which is extremely encouraging because that's where most of the arguments actually lie when decisions are made. Also in terms of the pandemic and inflation a lot of the societies are experiencing stress. It's led to closure hours and that probably has dropped income but I think it's also led to potentially less participation so there's a whole educational strategy to actually reboot that. One of the other things that one of the submitters came and talked about was that they'd be very disappointed if this policy change meant that the Government got involved with the day-to-day aspects of an incorporated society. That's not the intention. Incorporated societies are allowed to place their own value systems and schedules around what it is they do but governance of the society must not become a Government issue and the obligations of the officers around conflicts of interest and the ability of societies even to amalgamate is a stark reality in this time. They need to be able to look to the future and build organisations that are effectively promoted to the public but have confidence that they'll be around. They've got a group of members they can govern themselves and the bill actually allows these officers to get forward. Also we all know that independently accountants and lawyers do sit as non-executive members especially around AGM time to facilitate what can be quite a tumultuous day for the members to meet. So it's clear that there are mechanisms to cope with that. So the framework we believe is acceptable. I think there will be some fallout over the next sort of two to three years on what it means in terms of how they operate on a day-to-day basis. My only concern is that it allows certain individuals inside these organisations to dominate and to control the entity but as long as the constitution is very clear about elector representation we should be OK. The bill closes certain gaps in the old Act and I think the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee has done a fantastic job to bring this to the House. It does look like War and Peace in terms of where we're going for simple societies but as all the members have shown there are some larger organisations like the Green Party or political parties or sports organisations of significance who operate nationally to use this mechanism more effectively and I think it will be very positive. So we look forward to the bill coming in and we'd like to thank the committee for its work.