Turner Judy: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Turner Judy: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17662] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 This year we have seen some very important changes for the community and voluntary sector. It is interesting and should be noted that the drivers for much of that change have been the fulfilment of the 2005 supply and confidence agreement the Labour-led Government has with United Future. From 1 April this year all donations to registered charities from individuals are able to have a 33.3 percent tax refund with no cap on giving. The only limit on companies is a company’s own net income. Unlisted companies can now participate and Maori authorities can now participate. That single policy gained by United Future has the potential to deliver a level of support and cohesion in New Zealand communities that is unprecedented. 
Civil society is not solely reliant for its health on Government action. It is also sustained by strong families and connected communities. The community and voluntary sector provides us with all the chances to belong to to contribute to and where necessary to be the recipients of caring community networks. We have not finished just with that and in this recent Budget our party also continued our support for the charitable sector—the community and voluntary sector—by introducing some mechanisms to make payroll giving a possibility so that people who give on a regular basis to a registered charity can enjoy receiving the rebate in their pay packet that week rather than having to accumulate details of their donations and put those in with their tax return at the end of the year. That is the first bit of good news that has been happening for that sector and the response and feedback that we have had has been substantial. 
The second reason the sector has much to celebrate is that the new Community Partnership Fund over 4 years has been established. The Government is prepared to invest in strengthening the operations of community and voluntary organisations around their information and communications technology capability and that is a very good thing. But even more substantial is the $446.5 million announced by the Prime Minister to fully fund contracted essential services delivered by New Zealand community organisations for vulnerable families children and young people. That includes $133.1 million of reprioritised spending and those organisations will also receive regular funding increases to reflect changes in cost and changes in demand. Although I do not want to throw any dampener on the great gain that that has been for the voluntary sector it is unclear yet what will happen to the new projects that typically arise within a community in response to needs as they arise from time to time. 
What I celebrate and United Future celebrates about the new investment in the community and voluntary sector is the greater emphasis that is being placed on fostering more collaboration within local communities so that the safety nets that should characterise our communities do not have holes in them. If anybody had asked me 8 years ago about contestable funding I would have been a great supporter of it for this sector but now I am not a supporter of it. I have witnessed firsthand the devastation that was caused as we pitted service against service and provider against provider. The discord that that brought into local communities as groups competed with each other for the few precious Government dollars is still yet to be repaired I believe. Therefore the need for collaboration in communities and the emphasis on that in the funding are very important. I will be interested to see how the Government implements that because it is not an easy task. The requirement for agencies to work collaboratively together now when in the last 5 or 6 years up till now they have actually competed against one another—often very aggressively—for the precious dollars that were available is a tall order.