Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. So from budget advice to animal rescues to environmental clean-ups it's really hard to imagine our communities without charities. And I think it's really important that they just get on and do what they do best. I think about the work that charitable organisations did during COVID down in Southland. I think it was the really strong connections that they had with the community that meant that they could support so many people with welfare checks providing food parcels and making sure that everybody was connected with the services that they needed. But being a registered charity also confers significant financial benefits and so it's really important that transparency is retained. And so what this bill does is it makes a number of changes that will ensure that charities can get on and do what they do best but also be still publicly accountable.I really want to acknowledge the people that made submissions on the bill. So the Social Services and Community Committee heard 95 submissions and 28 oral submissions and as a result as a committee we did listen to the advice that those submitters gave us and we've made a number of really practical changes. I just want go through maybe two or three of them. I think the first one was a lot of the submitters raised an issue with the bill where there was a requirement that charities review their governance procedures annually. I think the point there was to make sure that those procedures meant that the charities were still able to achieve their charitable purposes. But what submitters told us was that annually was too much and in particular for those that were small charities and relying on a handful of volunteers. So basically the committee listened and what we recommended is that that be changed to at least once every three years to give them that time to be able to do that.One of the other things that people talked about was the definition of officer" in the bill and the fact that it was too broad. So the original definition was anyone who is able to exercise significant influence over the management or administration of the entity. I think what submitters were saying there was that that was a bit too vague and some of them were concerned that if you had people that were volunteering for the charity they may be put off because they might have thought that they inadvertently might get caught up in the responsibilities that came with that definition. A number of people also raised that in terms of the implications for cultural advisors. So again as a committee we listened to that and we recommended changing that definition and making it much more defined and tight.So what we recommended changing it to was someone who holds a position within the entity and is able to exercise significant influence over substantial decisions but also including in that definition those that had some delegated powers that otherwise would have fallen on the trustees board or governing body of the entity. I think the stance is that by making that much more tight that would get away from a lot of those concerns that those submitters had.We also recommended a few other changes and one of them was expanding the range of decisions made by the chief executive that charities could object to or appeal so that that was broader so that charities if they disagreed with something had a wider range of options in which they could make that appeal.So I think what we've done is we've made some quite practical changes there that mean that charities can get on and do their work but making sure that they're still accountable.I think just before I finish I would like to just thank charitable organisations for the work that they do. I'm just thinking through the impact. Many in communities down south and across the country rely on charitable organisations at some of the most difficult points in their lives and so charities are making sure that people can access things like food parcels budget advice counselling services—you know their work is absolutely vital. But I also think from an environmental perspective the work that some of those organisations do down in Southland in terms of organising beach clean-ups thinking about the predator control so that we've got our unique biodiversity and all that native tree planting. There's a lot of work that charitable organisations do so it's really important that we have legislation that's fit for purpose and that can let charitable organisations get on and do that while still being accountable. So I'm very happy to commend this bill to the House."