McClay Todd: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1220. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on this bill the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill brought to the House originally by the very capable member of Parliament Amy Adams who has now become a Minister and it is to be directed through the House by our senior whip Michael Woodhouse. Can I say congratulations to Ms Adams. She is another member who has been successful when it comes to members’ bills the same as the last bill that was up in the name of Mr Bakshi. I wish all members on the opposite side of the House success with their bids that may be in as well. 
Chris Hipkins 
: How about voting in favour of some of them? 
TODD McCLAY 
: I say to the Government whip that I will be voting in favour of this one. 
Chris Hipkins 
: I’m not the Government whip yet. 
TODD McCLAY 
: In fact this is the first time I have addressed Mr Hipkins since he became whip. I wish him more success than the last member who had the seat who also had red hair. But can I say to members opposite that this is a very important piece of legislation—[ 
Interruption 
] I see that my friends in New Zealand First enjoyed that last one. 
Can I say that this is a very important piece of legislation for many reasons. Charities do a very important job in our communities and they are very active in many of our communities. For the majority of these charities it is volunteers who are involved. Every day New Zealanders get up and go out and help out. They do good in our communities. They do a wonderful job and our communities are richer for their efforts and I want to on behalf of all members on this side of the House at least thank them for their efforts. 
Where this stops and falls down is when people go out and impugn their good reputation and undertake some activities that charities do without the positive and good effects. We have seen in the newspapers and we have probably all heard in our communities—at least those of us who have electorate seats will have seen in our communities when we speak to our constituents—that there is a great effort made to support these charities but people are becoming increasingly concerned about those who may act fraudulently who may not have the community’s or the charity’s best interests at heart or who may take too much from the activity they are doing. If somebody provides some money they want as much of it as possible if not all of it to go to that good work. 
Over the last couple of years as the local member of Parliament for Rotorua I have done a lot of work with the people from the SPCA in Rotorua. It is a fantastic charity and they do a wonderful job on behalf of us. Most people in the community have something to do with the SPCA one way or another. They go along and support them and donate to them or they go along and look for animals with them or sadly they abuse their animals and the SPCA has to pick up that slack and care for them and help out. I would hope that every single person who donates to the SPCA in Rotorua does so knowing that the funds will be used for the intent that they are given. 
I think this legislation takes a huge leap forward. I congratulate Amy Adams again on researching this on listening to her constituents on drafting the bill and on then having the fortitude and good luck to bring it through the bill process to this House so that there can be more clarity but more than that some important rules and laws around this to control the conduct of those who may not have the best interests of these charities at heart when they go out and work on their behalf. 
 I want to finish here and recognise the work of the last Commerce Committee and the last chairperson of the committee Ms Dalziel and say that I think the committee did a very good job with this piece of legislation. There were some 25 or 30 submissions and the committee members took their time to make sure they heard them properly and got it right. I agree with Miss Adams that it is important that we deal with it now rather than waiting for another piece of legislation. We have legislation before the committee around consumer law reform so we will have an opportunity to consider it further but I think this is a wonderful piece of legislation. 
As the Hon Lianne Dalziel said there are two Amy Adams to acknowledge in this world one an actress and the other now a Minister. Can I say they are both very talented people but one of them probably more talented than the other and that is the Minister Amy Adams. Well done to her for bringing this bill to the House. Thank you.