O'Rourke Denis: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 09 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2132. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First is also happy to support the amended Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill. I might say though to begin with that the name is a little bit unfortunate. Using the term “soliciting for donations” is probably not quite appropriate. I really think it should be something like “fund-raising” or along those lines. However I think that the important part of course is that this bill is now being changed very radically. I think that is a good thing.  
The original bill clearly had some problems. It was very complex and it was very difficult to work out how the various percentages would apply. I am a member of a charitable trust board in Christchurch that exists exclusively to raise money for donation to other charities. When I looked at the bill as it originally was I thought that we had some expenses that we had to deduct but no profits. When I looked at the complexity of the original bill I thought: “Well where on earth are we going to fit in that?”. I think that was one of the problems with it. When some of the charitable organisations that exist in the community looked at it if it had been enacted then they would have had a lot of trouble working out where they fitted in and what their liabilities were. Of course that means it is bad law because law that is not readily understandable and not readily applicable to people so that they can comply with it is not good law and should not really proceed.  
So it was that complexity that I think was the main problem with it. I also think that it had huge holes in it so that people with mischievous intent would have been able to avoid the legislation if that is what their intention was. But it was also too inflexible because of course any amendment would have had to come through the whole system of the House. That would have taken time and it would have been difficult.  
So I really do applaud the Commerce Committee for recommending these changes. I think that the amended bill which provides for the four areas of regulation is definitely the way to go. Other speakers have also mentioned why they think that is appropriate as well. But I note that the regulations are to be made for prescribing the disclosure requirements of information prescribing the manner of disclosure prescribing how the financial benefit must be calculated and expressed and specifying any financial benefit that the fund-raiser is required to disclose. All of that is fine but I do wonder whether it goes far enough. When you think about what the intention is or what the intention perhaps should be it really is not just about transparency. That is very important and I agree with that and so does New Zealand First. We do want to see more regulation around this difficult area.  
But perhaps what it could have done too is to specify some limitation about what could be deducted from charitable donations for expenses and for profits—and perhaps only by way of guidelines so again it would not be too inflexible. If the guidelines were then exceeded perhaps the regulation should require that that be stated to the person giving the donation. In this way we would be able to influence without too much prescription how much should be removed from charitable donations to cover the cost of expenses and profits of those who fund-raise. That is something that if I had been on the select committee I would have liked to argue for. It is too late now of course to do that. But perhaps when the Fair Trading Act is revised as it is intended to be shortly some consideration could then be given to that kind of concept. I think that is actually more important than the disclosure requirements that we see in the amended bill.  
However those regulations are needed. When we think about some of the sophisticated ways that fund-raising happens these days such as online donations automatic donations and all of that sort of thing and most particularly the sophisticated way—sometimes misleading I think—that soliciting for donations is carried out then there is no doubt at all that regulation of this kind is needed so that people do get a fair go. As everybody in the Chamber knows New Zealand First stands first and foremost—