Mapp Wayne: Charities Bill — First Reading 
Mapp Wayne: Charities Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12121] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 By way of interjection I asked the previous speaker Mr Gordon Copeland a member of United Future which supports the Government on confidence whether his party’s objective of an increased deduction or tax credit would be achieved in the Budget this year. He studiously ignored that question which makes me wonder whether United Future has any knowledge whatsoever about the Government’s programme in the Budget. Does it have anything other than a vain and pious hope that that could actually be achieved or is the Government treating it in a cavalier fashion? Who needs to take United Future into account would be the Government’s attitude. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will come back to the bill. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: We in the National Party are opposed to this bill. The reason we are opposed is that we are asking a basic question that apparently is not being asked by the Government itself and it is this: what mischief is this bill designed to cure? Is there large-scale fraudulent activity by charities that this bill would otherwise cure by its egregious and excessive regulatory procedures? Exactly what will the Charities Commission be doing that is not already being done by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue? We see this legislation as fundamentally spurious. This Government has an obsession to create by excessive regulation new institutions and new compliance costs so that it looks busy. 
Apparently a speaker for the New Zealand First Party said that this was something it had been seeking for years but I do not recall anything in New Zealand First’s past statements that show this to be a deep and pressing concern on its part. Again I ask what mischief does this legislation seek to cure? The reality is that there is no mischief. This legislation is simply not necessary. If there were substantial scandal in the charity sector I would have expected the Minister in charge of this bill or Government speakers—of which there have been precious few—to state the reasons and set out in detail that this has to be done because of those particular defaults. There is nothing whatsoever of that—just a recitation of the provisions of the bill itself. 
I want to turn to some of those provisions. One of the roles of the Charities Commission will be to give effect to Government policy. That is specifically stated in the legislation and is noted specifically in the explanatory note. That is presumably an important point. The role of the commission is then to deal with proposed Government policies. It makes one wonder what the intent could be. We have a bill that ostensibly is about registration and not changing the definition of charities—and I note that the legislation has included the traditional definition that as previous speakers have noted goes back hundreds of years to the 16th century. But this Government also has a record in the past of floating papers in which it wished to change precisely that definition—the definition of the bill for Mr Mallard’s edification—and the reality is that the Government intends expanding its tax take from charities. 
People might ask what on earth that means. It means attacking companies like Sanitarium and the business operations of charities which of course are undertaken to increase their wealth and cash-flow basis so that they can undertake their charitable purpose. That was the intention of the Government back in 2000. Now 3 years later it seeks to promote a bill that whilst that is not contained within it then makes reference to Government policies and proposed Government policies. I have to ask what the true motivation of this bill is. I simply do not believe that it is merely a matter of registration which of itself is unnecessary. The Government has not provided any basis of its need other than the fact that it will take place so one has to wonder whether there is not a more serious issue. 
Mr Jones spoke last night about a registration system in Britain. Whilst he proudly proclaimed the British system he failed to point out whether there were any failings in our current system. The reality is that he did not. As is perhaps the wont of New Zealand First he seemed to just like the legislation because it was legislation. One would have to say that New Zealand First has never been particularly rigorous when it comes to dealing with compliance costs. That party comes from an old-fashioned perspective of New Zealand’s economy. They think that what the Government does is always a good thing. They applaud big government and indeed they acknowledge that. 
I want to refer to one point of merit in the bill and that is the reference to the terrorist provisions—that a charity that has been deemed to be a terrorist entity under the terrorism and counter-terrorism legislation cannot be registered as a charity. I imagine that is a belt-and-braces exercise because clearly any entity categorised as a terrorist organisation would have its members prosecuted and its activities proscribed in any event. So putting that in the Charities Bill is of itself not a sufficient justification for the bill. 
We come back to the opening question: what actually is the mischief here? No Government member sought to describe it. They simply sought to describe the provisions of the bill but not the underlying purpose of it. Therefore the National Opposition sees no point and no merit in this bill.