Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
[Volume:620;Page:15468] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. The Government recently announced that we have a new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector the Hon Rick Barker who has started or is about to start work on this portfolio. I think it is a pity that Mr Barker missed the launch this morning of the new report  
Counting for Something 
:  
Value Added By Voluntary Agencies 
. He would have learnt some new and interesting facts relevant to the portfolio for which he is now taking responsibility. For example one of the report writers Suzanne Snively from PricewaterhouseCoopers told us that this study shows that just for the 10 organisations surveyed alone 7.63 million voluntary hours were worked in one year and that is probably an underestimate. These 7 million - plus hours are equivalent to over 4000 full-time equivalent workers who if part of the regular paid workforce would be the equivalent of all New Zealand’s dairy industry employees or two-thirds of the staff of the Ministry of Social Development our largest employer. 
The value of the work being done by the 10 groups surveyed has been calculated at a conservative estimate at $126 million in 2002 but Ms Snively believes that if a comparable study were done of the whole voluntary sector in this country the likely contribution to the economy would be in the region of $5 billion to $6 billion. 
The reason I have brought this study to the attention of the House today is that at the same time as the fruit of this research is appearing and at the same time as we have a new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector we also have before the House a Government bill that establishes a Charities Commission. The Charities Bill poses a serious threat to the very community and voluntary sector that Labour avows to support and whose value is so amply demonstrated by the new study. Hundreds of groups from all parts of this sector have made submissions asking the Government either to withdraw the Charities Bill altogether or to completely rewrite it with full input from this sector in a genuine consultation process which never happened the first time around. 
The Green Party supports their call. We believe that many features of the ill-conceived Charities Bill undermine the good work that this latest report so graphically illustrates in its findings. As the bill is written following its strange genesis in Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Development it threatens the political autonomy of not-for-profit organisations overloads them with compliance costs and creates a chilling effect on the willingness of volunteers to serve on boards at a time when it is already very difficult for many voluntary groups to get good board members who are willing to take the risk of taking on that onerous task. 
The bill maintains a definition of “charity” that goes back to the beginning of the 17th century in England and does very little in practice to achieve one of the Government’s key original goals I believe of dealing with the problem of corrupt or fake charities. It also establishes a Charities Commission which is to be fully funded by the community sector itself. It is a case of the Government once again soaking those who can least afford it with costs that similar bodies who support private sector endeavours are not expected to pay for themselves. 
 Now while the Government is telling the sector at the moment that it is willing to listen to submitters and make changes to the Charities Bill—and I thank the Hon Dr Cullen for the comments he made just before—I quote again from a speech that the Hon Judith Tizard made this morning to the New Zealand Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations. She said: “It goes without saying that charities must not be political organisations. An organisation whose stated purposes include the attainment of a political purpose cannot be a charity because its purposes must all be charitable.” In the light of the Hon Rick Barker’s reply to my question earlier on this afternoon that Judith Tizard did not make such a statement—despite the fact that the speech I have was given to me by a staff member from the Minister’s office—I invite Judith Tizard to make a personal statement to the House about the apparent contradiction between the official version of her speech and the denial by Mr Barker of what she said. 
Community groups are the backbone of our democracy—and I am sure the Labour Party supports that proposition—but the Labour Government attempts to muzzle the voice of the community and voluntary sector at its peril. I call on the new Minister to challenge the rest of his caucus to pay attention to the Counting for Something report and to ditch the current Charities Bill completely in favour of legislation that protects the integrity of the community sector protects its capacity to carry out political advocacy honours all the work done— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member’s time has expired.