SpeechDr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green) (remote): Kia ora. This is my first time speaking in the House from my home in the very beautiful but a little bedraggled Tai Rāwhiti. So much love to our whanaunga up the coast who are suffering the impact of more flooding. Perhaps now that Transmission Gully is open the Government could invest in high quality roads and bridges in the East Coast that could withstand the weather events that keep coming at us.So coming to the Incorporated Societies Bill I'm here on behalf of the Green Party to take a short call on this kaupapa that is very close to my heart. As a long-time community organiser who started as the treasurer of the Māori Women's Welfare League in Dunedin at the age of 15 I've gone from positions as secretary to treasurer to president of many many organisations from board member to board chair to local national and international roles that I still belong to some of over 24000 community organisations incorporated societies here in Aotearoa and as my colleague Jamie Strange just said the lifeblood of this country and they will be so much better off with this significant update—and of course anything that makes writing constitutions easier is going to be a good thing.I acknowledge that today is also International Transgender Day of Visibility so we acknowledge all those organisations who work to uplift the mana of our trans and non-binary whānau.So the Greens support a modern legal framework and that incorporates all the case law that has built up over the whakapapa of this very ancient Act. We thank the Minister and the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee for bringing it to the House.For the Greens we envisage a strong and independent tangata whenua community and voluntary sector within Aotearoa that contributes in ecologically and socially sustainable ways to enhance our social environmental cultural physical spiritual mental and economic wellbeing. We need a law and I think that this bill does it that does not constrain us from doing that.Like every incorporated society does at their AGM and now many of us will need to update our constitutions because of this law the Green Party is actually in the process right now of updating ours. One thing we really appreciate is that this bill allows us to add our tikanga section as an integral part of our constitution not as an add-on but something that's actually specified in the bill as important to what we do. And as a party that specifies non-violence in our charter we welcome the range of options now available for dispute resolution that we can have mediation facilitation tikanga-based practices and that arbitration is no longer just the main option available to us.Privacy is very important to the Greens and we note the Privacy Commissioner when they made their submission to the select committee—and I quote—The bill appropriately balanced the public's legitimate needs to have access to personal information about those involved with incorporated societies with the need to limit that access only for legitimate purposes and to take account of personal safety and privacy." The commission only made one recommendation to the bill and it was the express reference in clause 225 to protection orders and other name suppression mechanisms as grounds for the registrar having to remove and omit personal information. We're really pleased to see that the select committee took up and agreed to that recommendation.As the previous speaker spoke about thresholds for the small society—again being the treasurer being on small societies we do a lot of work; usually don't have much money. While we welcome the standardising of transparent and clearer financial reporting this was an area that we were the most concerned about. That difference between the threshold of large and small societies is really important because it determines the level of compliance required from them and it is a crippling thing to have to do your accounts and get them checked and audited when you've only got actually a tiny amount of money. So the original bill addressed that in part but the issue of the fixed assets versus current assets was still an issue. So I'm very thankful for the submitters to the bill and the efforts of the select committee that that it is being well resolved.We were really concerned for marae with million dollar wharenui the sports club with flash you know rugby fields netball courts but only a few thousand in the bank. This bill distinguishes between fixed assets such as land and building and current assets such as cash and liquid assets. That means the criteria for a small society and therefore less compliance is that they can have current assets of less than $50000 even of course if their valuable fixed assets are well in excess of that.Thank you for the opportunity for this short call. But that change alone will help around 60 percent of all incorporated societies. On their behalf certainly on behalf of the ones that I'm involved in we all look forward to this bill coming into effect and I commend it to the House. Kia ora."