SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Human Rights Action Trust Aotearoa/New Zealand – charity offering “legal advocacy service”

by Leave a Comment

The Human Rights Action Trust Aotearoa/New Zealand is a Charitable Trust that was registered as a charity (Reg. No. CC37775) with the Charities Commission currently on 30 June 2008. In its Trust Deed, available on the Commission’s website (www.charities.govt.nz), the Trust states its key Principles to include:

2.1 Pursuing social justice in Aotearoa/New Zealand through the promotion of, and respect for, the human rights of all persons, including the promotion of New Zealand’s obligations under international human rights law [e.g. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Humans Rights – to which the New Zealand government is a signatory].

2.2 Promoting an understanding of the inalienability, interdependence and universal application of all human rights laws.

2.4 Promoting the importance of human rights in the development and implementation of policy.

All three laudable principles designed to advance and promote community standards, clearly undergird an intended programme of political advocacy spelt out in the Trust’s statement of purposes, that include:

3.2   Provide policy advice to Government agencies, Parliamentary committees and such other legislative or Executive organs on the content of draft Bills proposed from a human rights perspective.

3.3   Provide a high quality, legal advice and advocacy service to bring litigation on matters relating to human rights or other issues of significant public interest.

It appears that the Charities Act 2005, as interpreted by the Charities Commission, permits registered charities to have such laudable principles and purposes as outlined above, involving a degree of “political advocacy” in the form of “advice” advanced to Parliamentary Committees by charity members or their representatives. [Read more…]

Human Rights Advocacy – a registered charity exposing violations of human rights

by Leave a Comment

Human Rights Advocacy is a Charitable Trust registered as a charity with the Charities Commission. It was registered on 1 June 2011 (Reg. No. CC46647) to “Encourage action to end systematic, institutional human rights violations [and] establish a more effective human rights monitoring and protection system” (see: www.hradv.org). Its Trust Deed defines its purposes as including:

s. 3.1.1     To expose violations of human rights to the public and United Nations.

s.3.1.3      To lobby for and support international human rights resolutions.

s. 3.1.4      To promote and publish human rights materials promoting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The Charities Commission records the Human Rights Advocacy [“HRA”] website as www.hradv.org and has the HRA Trust Deed available on its website (www.charities.govt.nz)

The HRA’s attractive website homepage features a colour photo of numerous human rights advocates holding up flags outside our Parliament buildings (presumably protesting against alleged human rights violations?). The HRA website seeks to expose the alleged persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese and Vietnamese governments and highlights HRA’s lobbying efforts to seek to have human rights legislation upheld by the New Zealand Government. [Read more…]

SAFE (organisation) – registered charity that engages in “animal rights advocacy”

by Leave a Comment

SAFE (Save Animals from Exploitation Inc.) is a registered charity (Reg. no. CC40428) with the Charities Commission. The Wikipedia entry for the organisation defines it as an “animal advocacy group“, whose “purpose is to oppose practices of perceived unnecessary animal exploitation and experimentation.” SAFE “actively campaigns against current intensive pig and chicken farming practices, is opposed to duck shooting, live sheep exports, genetically engineering animals and vivisection on beagles [a much-loved dog breed] and other animals [some less loved!].” SAFE also devotes considerable efforts to get the law changed with respect to improving animal welfare (political advocacy). [Read more…]

Humanist Society of NZ Inc. – A charity whose primary purpose is promoting Atheism?

by Leave a Comment

The Humanist Society of New Zealand (Incorporated) [“HSNZ”] incorporated in 1967, was registered as a charity with the Charities Commission on 30 June 2008   (Charity No. CC36074).

Its 2010 and 2011 financial statements available on the Commission’s website, reveal that this lobby group – noted for its “perpetual advocacy” of humanism – received $24,895 in donations between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2011, money solicited from the public to specifically fund its “NZ Atheist Bus Campaign”.

Only 56% ($13,948) of the donations received over this period were spent on the advertising campaign and no transparent explanation appears to be provided in the financial accounts as to how the remaining surplus ($10,947) was used.

Most of the surplus appears to have been absorbed in what has been labeled cutely, if not disingenuously, as an “investment loss” of $5,657 in 2010 and $716 in 2011 (total $6,373) – caused by the NZ bus company’s refusal to carry HSNZ pro-atheism ‘advertising’.

The bus company’s officials considered the HSNZ controversial advertising signs potentially offensive despite claims to the contrary by HSNZ that they were “friendly” and “innocuous”. NZ Bus officials took the view that the signs might negatively impact on their business and/or infringe advertising standards.

On 1 July 2010 the “NZ Atheist Bus Campaign” website (www.nogod.org.nz) announced that all donations received after that date would now be used for the transportation and installation of fixed billboards in cities around New Zealand.  “Tax-refundable donations” were called for via the website and the “Givealittle Service” website “for more billboards with atheist slogans across all New Zealand.”

These billboards contained the same “innocuous” and “friendly” message intended initially for the exterior of buses, namely:

“There is probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy yourself”. [Read more…]

NZAF – political advocacy and opposition to HIV disclosure ruling by Court

by Leave a Comment

NZ Aids Foundation wants ethical-legal balance on disclosure of HIV (Opinion: The Dominion Post, 16 March, 2012, p. B7)

“The very real risk of changing the legal precedent is that it will make people who think they may have contracted HIV afraid to come forward to test for fear that they will face serious prosecution and stigma.” Shaun Robinson, executive director of the registered charity NZAF

The NEW ZEALAND Aids Foundation (NZAF), a registered charity with the Charities Commission, has spoken out yet again against the major legal precedent established by the recent Court of Appeal ruling concerning HIV status disclosure, ACC compensation and a clarification of the nature of “sexual violation”.

The NZAF quarter-page contribution to the debate written by its executive director Shaun Robinson involves “the perpetual advocacy of a particular point of view on moral [ethical] issues,” [to use a phrase coined by the Charities Commission] being that of NZAF. At least 30 registered charities have supported the ruling of the Court of Appeal.

The public are well aware that NZAF is a registered charity committed to “the perpetual advocacy of a particular point of view on ethical [i.e. moral] issues” – (c.f. “propaganda” trusts as they are sometimes termed by the Charities Commission et al.).

The focus of NZAF in the present debate is primarily on the so-called ‘rights’ of “gay” or “bisexual persons” who have been diagnosed HIV-positive to withhold that personal information from their sex-partners, despite the fact that there is a very real risk of the transmission of the deadly virus to their partners via anal and vaginal intercourse, especialy when unprotected sex is engaged in. [Read more…]