Parker David: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Parker David: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I take a call on the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill. I was on the Commerce Committee at the time that this bill was referred to it after it had its first reading in the House. I think it is fair to say that the select committee members were very charitable in our dealings with the bill because it turned out that the bill that came to the select committee was completely impractical and did not work. This is recognised in the commentary from the select committee which notes: “We received submissions from some large and reputable charities who submitted against the bill.” That is shorthand for saying that some of New Zealand’s most reputable longstanding charities panned the bill as being wrong overreaching and one that would not work. That is effectively what they said.  
Michael Woodhouse 
: That’s not what they said. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: They did say that. I was actually— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: They generally endorsed it. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No actually they did not. They came along and said: “Hey look this is silly.” They gave the example of where someone is employed to get a donor who becomes a repetitive donor donating an amount every week or every month to the charity. They said: “Well how can you tell what percentage of the commission that might be paid to that person to help the charity in its efforts is attributable to donations over a period of time?”. They pointed out that it was just impractical. Indeed the report from the select committee said: “We”—this is all of us on the committee—“concluded that the complexities involved could not be dealt with in primary legislation …”. That means that the purpose which is an admirable purpose—to stop money being unduly taken or hived off for people who are ostensibly there for charitable purposes but lining their own pockets—could not be dealt with in primary legislation. Not only that but we found that a lot of the mischief that existed was already covered by other legislation and that again is sort of averted to in the select committee report which says that under the Fair Trading Act “provisions regarding unfair practices provide for prohibitions” on certain sorts of conduct. So if you are acting in trade under the Fair Trading Act and you are out there for financial reward pocketing the money yourself but pretending that it is for a charity that is a breach of the Fair Trading Act and we should not be surprised by that. That part was already covered by the law.  
We found out that in the end the only bit that really was not covered by the law and that could be perhaps better dealt with was that there are no positive obligations of disclosure upon people before they seek a donation. So faced with a choice as to whether we just reported this bill back as being a useless attempt at a good purpose we chose to take the charitable view actually fixed the bill changed it from that which arrived at the select committee and did what Amy Adams had not been able to do in advance of the committee. The officials who were struggling to try to help address the underlying issue said: “Well let’s come up with these regulations that could be made by the Governor-General about prescribing disclosure requirements for people who are seeking charitable donations.” This bill does not do that; it just creates some future right of a Government department to do it so another layer of bureaucracy is being put upon the charitable sector which I suspect will end up being disproportionate to the ill that is being claimed to be fixed.  
Actually I think the reason we went along with this at the select committee was that we found Amy Adams reasonable to deal with and we did not want to rub her nose in it. So we did not. We came up with this regulation-making power which is pretty harmless. It does not really advance a lot nothing will change tomorrow as a consequence of the passing of this legislation but Amy Adams gets a member’s bill going through initially in her name and now in the name of the member from Dunedin who has taken it over to see it through to the end of its process. So we are voting in favour of the bill but I thought that history should be put on record.