Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health): It's a great pleasure just as a humble member of the House to take a call on this the Incorporated Societies Bill because after all it's the incorporated societies in our community that are really the engine room of civil society. They provide a very important level of cohesion and coherence for activities and for people to engage in those activities and at the same time it's providing some sort of legal protection for the participants in that particular activity.Now I'm surprised that the member who's just resumed her seat and no doubt other members are commenting on the time that it has taken for this reform bill to come to the House because it started pretty much at the beginning of the previous Government's term in Government and it has taken this long to come to the House. So the question is although the previous Government had seven years between 2010 and 2017 to do the reform do the policy bring the bill to the House and pass it through they've left it to this very busy active almost overloaded Government—because we've got so much on doing so many good things we now have to do yet more. So it is very pleasing to see this.My story behind this bill is this: I was running an incorporated society happened to be a trade union at the time and I noticed that the original legislation was dated 1908. Of course we know the significance of 1908. It was the Blackball dispute on the West Coast. It was very much the crucible of the Labour Party one of the founding events of the great Labour Party that has contributed so much politically socially economically and otherwise to this country. So that was 1908 and here we are now in 2021 and still we have the Labour Party contributing so magnificently economically socially politically culturally and otherwise. But the point I was making is that in 2010 I was running an incorporated society and a lawyer at the same time received my notification through the Law Society that a lawyer—a very good lawyer from Napier: Mark von Dadelszen—had been commissioned by the Law Commission to do a review of the Incorporated Societies Act and he put a call out to all the lawyers across the country which at that time numbered about 9000 might have been 10000 then. And I was talking to him about this last week and he told me actually that he got one response from that call and it was from me. So I take great credit for the content of the bill and the policy that underlies it. I'm going on the word of Mark von Dadelszen—a very fine barrister in Napier. The issue that I particularly drew to his attention was actually about amalgamations because we were a trade union we had amalgamated with a number of trade unions that were also incorporated societies and the palaver we had to go through to do that made it extraordinarily difficult and cumbersome. So I'm very pleased to see in the bill provisions for amalgamations of incorporated societies in a way that respects the wishes of the respective members of the amalgamated incorporated societies but doesn't create too much of a hassle.Two other points I just wanted to make. I'm very pleased to see the reference now for the provision of tikanga in constitutions of incorporated societies and I think that's going to be great. So many Māori organisations are incorporated societies and they can actually write in the relevant tikanga for them depending on what the kaupapa of the incorporated society is and they are allowed to call themselves not just whatever it is incorporated; they can call themselves whatever it is mana tuku as well. So there's a recognition in this piece of legislation for incorporated societies to carry a name that is relevant to those who are running it and the kaupapa that they are engaged in. That I think is a great step forward.Finally the point I wanted to make too that I think is very welcome is the dispute resolution clause or the requirement that in constitutions there will need to be a dispute resolution clause. You know the incorporated societies most of them are reasonably modest and humble organisations and they are a great training ground for people to learn about propriety of decision making and those sorts of things. But also when things go awry when people fall out when decisions get made that are unpopular in some cases it can create this huge response that is completely out of proportion to the origin and the nature of the dispute. And people go off to court and do all sorts of things—although that mainly happens in the racing industry it is true but it can happen in other incorporated societies as well. This modernising bill that is the product of both the previous Government and this Government I think will give us the opportunity to provide something really good for incorporated societies. So the litigation risk is heavily minimised and people can sort out their affairs and their disputes without too much drama. On that basis I commend the bill to the House.