Speech: Charities Commission Regional Forum - Hon Tariana Turia

Speech given by the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector at the Dream Centre, Wiri, Auckland

I have to admit to an ulterior motive for coming here today.

It is my first trip to a Dream Centre.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of dreams about flying.

Apparently, according to one interpretation that means I have gained a new and different perspective on life – I have risen above a challenge - bringing with it a sense of exhilaration, a new energy.

So I am pleased to come here today, and test this new hypothesis with a group of people whom I know, are responsible for doing so much to support our communities, to thrive and benefit from your support.

Dreams, of course, are the ultimate precursor to change and to taking action.

We would do well to remember the call of the poet Henry Wadsworth

“The life of a person consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service”.

Today at this Charities Commission Regional Forum, we hope to provide an opportunity for the 150 or so representatives of registered charities from across the Auckland region to share their stories about how they have moved from their dreams to creating strategies and action plans for your charity to make a real difference in the community.

I start with acknowledging Trevor Garrett, the Chief Executive of the Charities Commission, and some of the Board members attending today’s hui, namely Frank Claridge, Tania Kingi and Ken Williams. I want to thank you for taking the initiative in hosting this hui – but more importantly I want to thank you for the wonderful work you are doing at the Commission, and particularly so in light of the climate of recession.

It has been six years now since you were first established and it is to your credit as a well-functioning agency, that you now have over 25,000 registered charities on your books.

The process of registration provides an important assurance to the sector, to donors and funders and the wider public at large about the transparency and accountability of charities. This in turn, translates into greater trust and confidence in the sector.

In more recent times the Commission has branched out to strengthen its support of charities through the education function. The Officer Kit – a resource to assist charities in meeting their responsibilities, has been very well received and I want to congratulate you for the work involved.

All of us at this forum, will know that the charitable sector has attracted a fair share of profile over recent years and we should make every effort possible to guarantee and protect even greater confidence in the sector.

That is why days like this one, are so important. We all need the lift that comes with being inspired and invigorated by your various success stories – or in fact even stories in which challenges have been worked through, and resolutions achieved.

South Auckland is home to some incredible stories that stir the heart and charge the batteries.

The Finlayson Park Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters Trust – otherwise known as the HIPPY Trust – is a classic example. The trust has a family-based programme which focuses on Maori, Pasifika and low income whanau attending early childhood education.

There has been some exciting research coming out of this programme which suggests that the HIPPY graduates at Finlayson Park School were on average, nearly one year in reading age above their non-HIPPY peers – and were also outperforming on numeracy tests. That is a fantastic result – that’s exactly the stuff that dreams are made of!

Another great example is the connections made between three key Otara charities – Otara Health, Crosspower Ministries and Turn Your Life Around. These charities are working collaboratively in a group called “Absolutely Otara” alongside initiatives run by the Otara Youth Provider Forum and the Otara Youth Collective.

These sorts of innovative projects are so energising – they’re good for the soul.

But they’re also good for the economy.

Transparency around how every dollar is spent is of course a feature of current Government initiatives. The bigger picture is the wide range of so-called ‘machinery of Government’ changes, which are about providing better value for money, less duplication and improved co-ordination between services.

One of the most recent proposals is that the Charities Commission moves to a new home – the Department of Internal Affairs.

The thinking is that the Department has strong links with community groups, and considerable experience in operating regulatory regimes and so there would be synergy between their work and yours.

Ultimately Cabinet will need to make a decision about whether that would work – and we expect the process of due diligence to be completed over the coming weeks. In the meantime it’s business as usual.

While the location of the Commission is under review, the relevance of the legislation is also coming under scrutiny.

There has been some immediate progress in a mainly technical review of the Charities Act, and these amendments will be passed through the House via the Statutes Amendment Bill currently under consideration. We would hope to see some improved processes for charities as a result of this work.

But the long-term goal is the fundamental ‘first-principles’ review of the Charities Act, which will commence in 2012 and be completed in 2015.

The review will determine whether the legislation is fit for purpose and reflects the current needs of the charitable sector. It will look at some of the tricky questions such as how we even define charitable purpose; and what sort of impact that might have, for example, on tax revenue.

There has been some high profile accorded to various appeals made against decisions made by the Charities Commission about charitable status. There has also been public discussion about the systems of registration both here and over in Australia.

The key point is, that our law surrounding the term charitable purposes has developed over 400 years through case law. We need to be part of the ongoing conversation and reach a consensus view about the very status of charities to guide our ongoing work in this sector.

One initiative which I believe will help us in this regard is the open data project which has now officially gone ‘live’. This project means that the live raw data on the Charities Register is more easily accessible and comparable for anyone who wants to search and download information from it.

Instead of the old days of searching for one organisation at a time, the advanced search function means instant information about the sector at your fingertips. It will be a fantastic tool for researchers and for software and web developers to interrogate the data and for finding out areas of need that are not currently serviced.

As an example, an organisation providing support services to refugees might want to search for registered charities that provide similar services in the same region. This tool means that we can now work out exactly what support communities are receiving and be much better informed about the needs that exist.

These are challenging times. But they are also times when the tough get creative…and I am really excited by all the various initiatives I hear about from either the Charities Commission or directly from charities.

I will be really interested in receiving the feedback from this regional wrap-up – and in particular, the stories from leading volunteers and leading organisations – the people who give your charities such momentum.

I want to really thank all of you, for the time you have given to your respective charities, to your respective communities, and indeed to the wider community and voluntary sector.

You are bringing the poet’s words to fruition: combining visions and dreams in the creation of positive community development and active charitable support. I congratulate you all on such important work and wish you a wonderful day.