Locke Keith: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Locke Keith: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17992] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I again add the Green Party’s congratulations to you Mr Robertson on your promotion to the role of Assistant Speaker. I thank you very much for the work that you have done in this House and will do in your new role. The Green Party supports this bill the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). It is a tidy-up bill as has been said by other speakers. It has a consensus. The Green Party has a little bit of a complaint: why is this bill being discussed under urgency? Surely urgency is for discussing the urgent business of the House. It does not appear to us that the tidy-up amendments in this bill are urgent. They could be dealt with during the normal business of the House. Statutes revision bills go through the House pretty quickly anyway. 
There is a misuse of urgency in general that we are involved in at the present time. It would have been quite easy for the Government which has called urgency mainly to progress the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill to just extend the state of emergency which gives it all kinds of powers in the Canterbury area for a few weeks more. If it had done that then that would have allowed proper select committee consideration to be given to that bill so that we could get the legislation right if that is possible. Of course the Green Party has opposed that bill. 
To get back to this particular bill and to follow on from Grant Robertson’s speech I say the domestic violence issue comes up in Part 8 of the bill in some small technical amendments. The issue of domestic violence is also related to other problems in society. The more problems and tensions that there are in society—the more poverty there is—the more likely it is that the frustrations within a family will come out in the form of domestic violence which has to be handled by social workers and by the courts. 
I think that is another reason why to get back to the Canterbury situation—I have friends and relations there and I have visited Christchurch since the 22 February earthquake—we notice greater tensions within families there. People face uncertainty regarding their futures. They do not know where their jobs are going or where their businesses are going. They are in financial hardship. Maybe the insurance people have not come around to give a proper quote on their house in order to assess whether it can be repaired how much it will cost and how much cover they have etc. etc. All of those things are up in the air let alone the provision of adequate water sewerage and all of the other things. That situation is ripe for the creation of more domestic tensions and potentially domestic violence. 
I think that is very relevant to the Government’s policy because at the moment a lot of workers and businesses that have been affected by the earthquake are not sure how long the Government will continue the income support system. It is due to run out in a week or two and there is uncertainty and nervousness amongst people in Christchurch who are affected in that way as to whether the Government will continue the support until they really get back on their feet in terms of full-time fully paid employment or in terms of their business operating properly on the level that it did before the earthquake. 
Grant Robertson also talked about the charities issue and the inclusion of organisations dedicated to sport under the Charities Act. I think one of the problems with regard to the Charities Act now is the prohibition in effect on advocacy by a number of charities. One sees that issue in organisation after organisation. The Government has never properly recognised that charitable organisations are often at the coalface delivering social services often with money they have got voluntarily from the community. They are at the coalface dealing with poor people dealing with disadvantaged people and dealing with people who are suffering from all sorts of problems. They are in the best position of any organisations in our community to offer advice to the Government to offer advice to the community and to engage in informed advocacy. Under the Act as I said if an organisation is involved in too much advocacy then it is not really deemed to be a charitable organisation. It is considered to have a political bias and therefore it is knocked off the list of organisations entitled to charitable status. I think that issue really needs to be looked at and corrected. We want to have real democracy in our society which involves all the voluntary organisations contributing to the maximum in the debate on the way forward to overcome some of the social problems that we face. With those few comments I say the Green Party will support this bill.