Prasad Rajen: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3446. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 Ni sa bula vinaka. Thank you for another call. I think it is a split call with the Greens. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is a split call. The member will be notified at 1 minute to go. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Thank you very much. I just want to respond to Mr Mark Mitchell because he posed a direct challenge to this side of the House. We will not be following the best examples of his party in terms of coming up with targets of a type because if we did Mr Mitchell we would be planning for 2017. That is called never-never time. Our party is much more in the present which is what we are doing. This is a good bill the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill and it addresses an important problem that has occurred in our society. 
I think the problem that has occurred is sad and it is a commentary on our society as well. Charities do extremely valuable work. They go where many do not go. They take on tasks that many do not take up. And they do all of that by raising small amounts of money often and sometimes large amounts of money to support their great work. These are often areas in which others do not go but charities will raise this money. Of course we have seen more and more larger institutions like our universities also doing collections of a type by raising funds as well for their own research programmes etc. So they will also take advantage of this. 
It is a shame that many of the supporters who put in long hours to collect this money for these charities are taken for a ride by unscrupulous people who think that it is OK to take a substantial proportion of the moneys raised for their own ends and to run it almost like a business. Nobody objects to taking enough to meet your expenses but when you are taking such large amounts as has been revealed to this House I think this bill becomes important. I know that Mr Woodhouse objected to me using the word “rort” in the Committee stage of this bill but in fact that was the word that the Hon Amy Adams used when she brought this bill to the House. There was a sense of frustration in her voice that the rorts had to stop and that was when this bill came into the House. So we should reflect on the fact that there are unscrupulous practitioners in our midst and they take advantage in respect of funds raised for the most vulnerable. It should be guaranteed that that ought not to happen. I think this bill goes a long way towards doing that. 
It is interesting where things start off and where they end. It was a bill on which we debated in the first reading the various clauses in the bill. Where that ended up in the Commerce Committee was somewhere quite different. This House was expressing concern in relation to as much as 80 percent of the money being taken by collectors. So the select committee I think did a great job in finding a way to meet the goals that the Hon Amy Adams had. I think that the select committee took a generous approach to this particular bill. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not know what Mr McClay is chipping on about because I am commenting favourably on the select committee process. 
Todd McClay 
: I was congratulating you on your speech. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Oh thank you. I appreciate the congratulations Mr McClay. It was very different from the select committee you led on the asset sales programme. This select committee was very very generous and through that process the bill came back to the House in a different form. The challenge still is—and Su’a William Sio raised this as well—that we think time ought not to be wasted in developing the regulations that stand alongside this bill. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: This is nonsense. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Here is a member who has only just walked into the House and the first word he has to say is “nonsense”. He has not followed anything. Mr Bridges as a Minister you should be much more responsible than that. I do not know what he has had today but perhaps he could be a bit more generous. But I do say that I hope those regulations will be developed with some urgency. Thank you.