Prasad Rajen: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17994] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I also add my congratulations to you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson on your recent appointment as Assistant Speaker. I will say this: it is wonderful to see a person in a job like yours enjoying himself so much. Every time you are in the Chair or in the Chair at the Table—either of the two Chairs—your face gives the sense of a person really enjoying what he is doing. I commend you for that spirit but I also sincerely as a friend and colleague congratulate you on your appointment. It was well made. 
It was interesting that my dear friend Tim Macindoe took time to tell us how to save time on something inconsequential but did not point to the consequential parts of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) which we are debating today. My friend could have saved a bit of time. I say to him that the priceless moment that would be difficult to capture again was when the Green member Keith Locke got the call ahead of him. The look on his face—I would pay money to see that again! But it was good to see him speak. 
A Statutes Amendment Bill is an important bill. It is supposed to be non-controversial. It is supposed to collect technical parts of legislation that need to be brought to the House to be tidied up. As others have said generally they tend to be non-controversial items that most sides agree on. I notice Mr Bakshi took a call earlier and in classical Bakshi fashion it was brief— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member must use the member’s full name. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I am sorry—the honourable member Mr Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. In typical fashion his speech was brief. It is interesting that the House has taken— 
Tim Macindoe 
: But very lucid and informative. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: —Mr Macindoe might like to take note of this point—a lot of time on his member’s bill the Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill. That provision belonged in this bill—one short paragraph that we would have agreed on. An omnibus bill of this nature should address that type of provision. 
There are clearly many good provisions in this bill and I will talk about a couple of them. There is the series of changes to the Charities Commission. We all know that the commission has in the past 5 or 6 years carefully established itself and is now a key part of the non-governmental organisation sector the charities sector. It has made huge strides in how it operates and how it regulates if you like many of the charities. Its work is quite important. We have a number of amendments in this bill and most of them are fine and non-controversial. However some measures require the close scrutiny of the Government Administration Committee and it is in the Charities Commission area that that case can be made. The amendment to section 40(1) in clause 11 requires the entity—the non-governmental organisation that is applying to be a charity—to inform the Charities Commission if an officer subsequently becomes disqualified under the Act. It seems reasonable and on the face of it it is innocuous. But little amendments of this nature place quite a huge burden on charities. They will need to watch out to set up a system so that whoever it is who falls foul and becomes disqualified under the Act is reported. As to how far it goes and into what areas there is no guidance on that at all. Labour believes that this requirement could place a considerable burden on small entities. They may not be aware of it; well that can be easily fixed. But if this amendment is to be supported it needs to be accompanied by an awareness-raising and training programme for smaller entities. The second point is about the implications. If an entity fails to meet the requirements of the proposed amendment what then? What is to happen to that entity? That also is something the select committee needs to follow up. A number of points like that need to be made about some of the provisions. 
But there is another point about the amendments to the Charities Act. Sometimes an amendment under a Statutes Amendment Bill takes attention away from addressing more fundamental questions. This bill makes three or four or five minor amendments to that Act but there clearly is a need to look at the definition of advocacy in the Charities Act. I agree with my colleague from the Greens Keith Locke who raised this point as well. It is a problem because the National Council of Women and a number of other major charities have been unable to be registered as charities yet who would argue in this House that the work they do is not charitable? Therefore they ought to be caught by the Charities Act. That is a major area that the Associate Minister of Justice has not taken up and he is not likely to do so until the 2015 review of that particular Act but its implications are serious now. The opportunity to address more fundamental questions has not been taken up. By making minor amendments of the type that are being made here we lose that opportunity and it will be some time before we get it back. In any case even the changes that are being made here to the Charities Act have some implications and the select committee will need to examine them as well. 
There are many other minor changes in this bill that my colleagues have referred to. I am interested in one change to do with the Marriage Act. It really says that one does not need to be a New Zealander to get a licence to marry. It makes a minor change and I am glad that that kind of change is there. It reflects the diversification of New Zealand society. Many many cultural and ethnic groups living in our society do not meet the present provisions. It is good to see a bill like this making that small change which will be important to those applying for a licence. It also gives quite an important symbolic message to New Zealand—and to this House I guess—that going forward our bills need to take into account the diversification of our society. 
There are some changes to the Domestic Violence Act. Again they are minor changes and nothing to quibble about. But the area of domestic violence in itself requires a lot more of the attention of this House than it has received so far. Although programmes out there are under way to begin to address domestic violence in our society we need to do a lot more and these changes cannot be all that we will do. The debate is going on about whether our funding is in the right place and whether it is the right amount of funding. We tend to be very shy of actually committing to a programme of action that we know will need to go for about 10 years before it begins to make a dent in our rather abysmal domestic violence rates. We tend after 2 or 3 years to play around with the resourcing of those programmes. Some of the rules around that that need to be strengthened are not being strengthened—yet some others are. That is another example of an area that demands much greater attention from this House not receiving that attention. 
There are a number of areas in this particular bill to be taken up. They appear to be non-controversial but their implications are quite serious. I have spoken on one or two of those areas and I trust that the select committee will take them up. I look forward to seeing that when the bill comes back to the House. Thank you.