Goodhew Jo: Crown Entities Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goodhew Jo: Crown Entities Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2244. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
: 
 Well today I speak as the Minister who will be responsible for some of the functions contained in this Crown Entities Reform Bill once it has passed. One of my delegations as Associate Minister of Health is responsibility for the Health Promotion Agency which is being created by the bill. And as Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector I am able to advise Mr Mallard that it is in fact myself who will be responsible for Part 3 of the bill.  
The bill’s intention with the Health Promotion Agency is first and foremost to create an agency that will deliver better public health outcomes for New Zealanders. Lifestyle factors like tobacco use alcohol abuse and obesity are significant drivers of poor health outcomes and these are issues that many communities in New Zealand struggle with. For example surveys indicate that almost a quarter of New Zealand adults have a potentially hazardous drinking pattern and each year more than 2000 New Zealanders end up in hospital with alcohol-related disease. The Health Promotion Agency will work to inform and empower people to improve their health. At the broadest level the work currently carried out by the Alcohol Advisory Council and the Health Sponsorship Council will remain the same but in the Health Promotion Agency it will benefit from being much more integrated. A more integrated and efficient approach to health promotion across the range of public health issues will in turn deliver better public health outcomes. By combining the skills and expertise of these two high-performing agencies the Health Promotion Agency will be able to utilise a fuller range of existing relationships and lead the health sector on health promotion issues.  
I will move on now to the Charities Act changes which relate to the Charities Commission. I know from firsthand experience how vital the charitable and non-profit sector is the challenges that it faces and the benefits it produces for New Zealanders. It is my view that it will be for the long-term benefit of the sector to have a stable and resilient mechanism for the carrying out of the charities-related functions set out in the Charities Act for the foreseeable future. There was some concern from the sector about the Charities Act’s definition of “charitable purpose” and the commission’s interpretation of this definition. In light of this concern submitters asked why the Government would not wait until the outcome of the upcoming review of the Act to make the structural changes proposed in the bill. However the changes being structural only will not affect the review’s ability to examine the definition of “charitable purpose” or indeed any other of the provisions of the Charities Act. Moreover delaying the merger to wait for the review of the Charities Act will not address the Government’s other priorities of reducing the State sector fragmentation and achieving efficiencies in areas such as back-office services by housing functions within larger more resilient agencies.  
As the Minister has already pointed out the transfer to the Department of Internal Affairs of the charities-related functions performed is intended to help ensure the long-term viability of those functions by having them carried out by a larger more resilient agency. The department is better equipped to respond to challenging financial circumstances than a small stand-alone agency. The Minister has also already explained how the independence of the registration function will be preserved and the education function in fact strengthened in the bill. I would like to reassure those people who have expressed concerns that these functions might be weakened or lost that this is not the case. As Minister I will not be able to direct the registration board or the department if it is acting under delegation from the board. The department will be directly responsible to the House for the performance of the education and promotion functions and it is working closely with the commission to ensure a smooth transition.  
The creation of the Health Promotion Agency and the move of charities functions into the Department of Internal Affairs under this bill will improve both the quality and efficiency of public services now and into the future and I commend this bill to the House.