Moroney SueSUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the very first day of the session of 2017 so I extend a happy New Year to colleagues in the House and also to members of the public who are listening. It is going to be a cracker is it not 2017? It is going to be fantastic. I am really looking forward to it. I am quite surprised to find that my first contribution for this year is in fact on the Charities Amendment Bill for the third reading. At the outset I do want to congratulate the new Minister in charge of this bill the Hon Alfred Ngaro. Congratulations. I hope this is not going to be what we will see from you in the future—that you pick up someone else's work and run with it on the third reading. I am sure that the Minister will come forward—we hope—with plenty of new invigorating ideas for this sector because this sector desperately needs it.I also want to congratulate and thank the Hon Jo Goodhew on her work on this bill because of course she obviously did the lion's share of the work on it and was the Minister right through until the third reading. I am really pleased to see that she did get to do her third reading speech as the Minister in charge of the bill before the reshuffle happened and she was no longer the Minister. I imagine that when she made that speech—and I am not sure how long ago that was—she probably was unaware that that would be her last contribution as a Minister. But that is the way this place works. It is pretty swift when that occurs and there are winners and losers and this bill I guess is one of the demonstrations of how quickly things can change and who are Ministers and who are not.This bill has been brought forward now in its third reading under the name of Alfred Ngaro and I really do hope—I sincerely hope—that he does bring a freshness and a new approach to this sector. What this sector does need is not the tinkerings of this bill; it actually needs an injection of commitment and of resources and money to be able to do the work that it does incredibly well.I want to acknowledge—and sincerely—the people who work for the charities up and down New Zealand for the work that they do because it is mostly volunteers who carry out this work and yet they could be forgiven for feeling like they are being thrashed at times because we do have growing needs in our community. There is no doubt that there are growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots in our communities and it is largely the charitable organisations that end up picking up the pieces of actually decisions made in this House that increase those disparities which means that charitable organisations are needed more and more. This burden from decisions made in this House does not fall on the members who make those decisions in this House but falls on the people who work for and who volunteer for charitable organisations.So this bill is pretty typical actually of the sort of approach that this tired Government has been taking over many issues. There is no doubt that there are many needs in this sector but this bill does not address them. It does a little bit of tinkering around the edges. So what is the harm that this bill is attempting to address? Well it turns out that really the big issue that plagues the charities the charitable organisations in that sector of our community according to that Government is that someone who may have been convicted for tax fraud or that type of misdemeanour might be an officer for a charitable organisation and this bill will ensure that this will not continue to happen.Hon Simon Bridges: Well that's pretty good.SUE MORONEY: Well apparently that is the big issue facing this sector according to Simon Bridges. He thinks this is their big issue. Well how out of touch is that Government? If it truly believes that for these charitable organisations the big thing they would want Government to do is to fix up this particular issue I think the Government has got it wrong. It has got it wrong and it is completely out of touch because what this sector really needs is a genuine commitment from this Government to actually recognise that the demand that its policies are creating is driving more work for this sector and yet its funding does not reflect it—its funding does not reflect it.But here we are tinkering along and yes it is true. The Labour Party is supporting this bill because what is there to oppose in it? It is such a meaningless little bill that what is there really to oppose in it? Of course we do not want people who may have dishonesty charges against them heading up these charitable organisations. Of course we do not want that but is that the big issue that plagues this sector? Of course it is not. Everyone who volunteers or works for a charitable organisation knows that this is not the big problem that needs fixing.Hon Simon Bridges: What is it then?SUE MORONEY: The big problem that needs fixing is resourcing Mr Bridges. He has to ask the Opposition what the big problem is that is plaguing that sector. That is how out of touch the Government is. It is resourcing. That is the big problem for it. And we know that because ComVoices which is an umbrella organisation that represents many in this sector actually just last year did a state of the sector survey. So it put a lot of time and effort into finding out what was actually going on in the sector. Would it not be refreshing if someone like Alfred Ngaro the new Minister actually looked at this survey and acted on it? Would it not be great if the Government itself had done this work instead of relying on ComVoices with its meagre funding to find out what is going on in this sector? Why did that Government not do this survey itself to find out what the real issues were so that it could bring a bill to this House that was meaningful and would make a difference?If the Government had done its own survey of this sector here is what it would have found and it would not have liked to be confronted with the truth. The truth is that 65 percent of the organisations have more work than they had 2 years ago but only 34 percent of them have more staff than they had 2 years ago. So what does this mean Mr Bridges? He is scratching his head. He is not sure but it is pretty obvious that if they have got more work but they do not have more staff then those staff are under more pressure.Hon Simon Bridges: You're good! Why aren't you on the front bench?SUE MORONEY: Well there you go. Simon Bridges could not work it out for himself but now he has learnt something new. He is not good with numbers—that lad.But it gets worse. There are 68 percent doing more work than is specified in their contracts. This is important because when Labour was in Government Labour had an agreement with the sector and a plan for the sector to be 100 percent compensated for the work that it did—not 68 percent as it is under this Government. There are 68 percent doing more work than is specified in the contracts. So the organisations are facing an increasing complexity of needs in the clients in the communities that they deal with.Hon Simon Bridges: Ha ha!SUE MORONEY: Simon Bridges might find that funny but they have fewer resources to deal with it. It is also the financial pressures. If this Government actually bothered to survey the sector and find out for itself well 42 percent of the organisations were unable to offer staff any wage increases in the last 2 years and 2 percent are facing closure—42 percent are worried about their financial viability.In my community of Hamilton West one such organisation has actually closed down. It is called the Crosslight Trust. It has closed because of this Government's inability to actually deal with the issues that these charitable trusts face day after day after day. That is the sort of legacy that this Government has got. In Hamilton West the Crosslight Trust which has been operating for years and years and looking after people in Hamilton West closed its doors at the end of last year because it could not continue under those sorts of pressures that ComVoices shows are happening right throughout the sector.