Mallard Trevor: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2357. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman. I thought your description of the junior Government whip was a bit unkind in that way. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! The member is a longstanding member. He knows better than to comment on the ruling of the Chair. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do. It is very rarely I come to the defence of a damsel from the other side and that is what I get for it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: You’re doing it yet again! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Ha ha! Mr Chair— 
Louisa Wall 
: She’s a good netball player Trevor. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Is she a good netball player? 
Louisa Wall 
: She is. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Is she? Well the member would know. I had better not make the next comment or I could be in very serious trouble. The Chairperson has no idea what I might have been going on to say so I certainly will not.  
I want to make it clear that the Labour Party thinks this is the most obnoxious part of this bill. I think it is fair to say that as was indicated yesterday there was the first part of the bill which we supported; the second part which we opposed; and this is the part that we very seriously oppose because what is occurring is a premature killing off of the Charities Commission well in advance of the requirements for the review of the Charities Act.  
The normal process whenever there is good governance is that the Government does the review before it takes the decisions rather than take the decisions and do the review after the fact as in this particular case. There is I think an attempt by the Minister—and I do not know whether it is a genuine one or one that really is just to try to save face to try to promote the independence of the Department of Internal Affairs in this matter but I think all of us know that when there is a Minister and a chief executive it is very very hard for there to be statutory impendence as far as the decision making is concerned. In this case there is just massive suspicion in the sector about the objectives of the Government in this abolition.  
As I indicated at the time of the second reading no one is pretending that the Charities Commission has always done its job in a way that has been positive and lacking in bureaucracy. I think it is fair to say that especially earlier in its time it was too tight and it was unreasonable. Again I have related—not all members were in the Chamber at the time—the experience that one of my colleagues had with it with regard to the non-registration of the Anglican Church as a charity because of the lack of a wind-up clause in the constitution of the Anglican Church. I think that does get to the point of being unreasonably bureaucratic although again one of my more religious colleagues indicated that perhaps that sort of— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Raymond Huo doesn’t even believe in God! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think what we were talking about was the other ways of intervening in order to indicate whether or not a wind-up clause was necessary for the Anglican Church. People have a variety of beliefs in that area. I might say that the Prime Minister has been a Jew a Christian an agnostic and an atheist—all of those things—when it has been convenient. 
Hon Jo Goodhew 
: And they all need a wind-up clause.  
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member is criticising me after her colleague Simon Bridges brought my colleague’s religious beliefs into the debate. The members opposite cannot have it both ways. They cannot have it both ways. Either they want members’ religious beliefs left out of it or they open it up and the Prime Minister has four positions—four positions—on his religious beliefs. I did not know you could have four positions on whether you had a religious belief. In fact we could have the Prime Minister in charge of the Kama Sutra of religious beliefs. Getting back to the bill— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Please do. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —I think if there was ever a need for a wind-up clause for the Anglican Church it would be if the Prime Minister joined it. If the Prime Minister joined the Anglican Church I would want to wind it up if I was the archbishop. Do they have archbishops in the Anglican Church?  
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Yes. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: If I was the archbishop I would want to wind it up. The point that I am making is that occasionally in the past—[ 
Interruption 
]  
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I am happy Mr Chairman. It is a robust debate and if the members opposite disagree and want to feed me some lines I am happy for them to do it. I am happy for them to do it and I do not think it is your—oh well Mr Chairman I am not telling you what your job is. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes you are. Proceed.  
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Mr Chairman do not coach them please—do not coach them. Let them make their own mistakes Mr Chairman.  
Going back to the disestablishment there is a strong view that the legislative safeguards within the bill as it was reported back by the Government Administration Committee do not go far enough. Again I was just beginning to commend the Minister in charge of the bill the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman for his attempt by way of his Supplementary Order Papers on this part to improve the bill but we do not think those attempts go far enough to preserve the independence. 
I am certainly of the view that the Department of Internal Affairs—and I know there are some very good officials who work at the moment and from time to time for the department—is very much a department of what no one else wants. It is a department that has a set of functions that other departments do not really want. It is sort of the opposite to the Ministry of Economic Development under Steven Joyce which grabs everything that might be important and might make a decision. 
What is clear is that with this review of the Charities Act or with this shift of the Charities Commission there is yet another thing being added in to the Department of Internal Affairs that will not be particularly useful. We will therefore be working very hard in order to oppose this. I want to ask the Minister whether clause 50(1) especially paragraphs (a) and (b) is in fact consistent with previous legislation in this area. Is this a standard technical redundancy clause or is it something that is different? On the equivalent employment clause clause 50(2) again I would like the Minister to tell the Committee whether or not that clause especially paragraph (d) on the treatment of the period of service is in fact something that is the same as has been used in similar legislation in the past.  
 The other question is whether because these people currently work for a Crown entity and are not public servants that period counts as a period of public service even though it was in a Crown entity. The Chair is nodding. I do not think he is going to sleep. I think the Chair at least understands the difference and the importance of the difference as far as the conditions of employment are concerned.  
I want to get an assurance—and I want to get an assurance both ways—that the employees are not being advantaged as a result of this change and that they are not being disadvantaged as a result of what appears to be a change of conditions for people from being State servants who work for a Crown entity to being public servants because they come in within the core of the State Service. I know that Dr Coleman is someone who is well versed in the niceties of the if you like different borders and rings around the State sector and the concentric circles we have but the Public Service is important to New Zealanders.