SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

NZ Charities Commission – to be disestablished

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The imminent disestablishment of the New Zealand Charities Commission, scheduled to occur on 1 July 2012, if the Government achieves its legislative plans, has caused some serious concerns among those involved in organisations working in the charities sector. However, some are welcoming the move, in particular some of those who have experienced the downside of the “egregious inner machinations of the complaint-driven deregistration process”, as one aggrieved charity CEO expressed it, with its unreasonable and seemingly blind adherence to an out-dated 400-year old Victorian definition of “charitable purpose”.

A number of influencial media commentators have sounded alarm bells over the last few years as groups such as the highly regarded National Council of Women of New Zealand, Business in the Community Limited (Business Mentors NZ – the nation’s number one not-for-profit mentoring organisation), The Business in the Community Trust,  the Liberty Trust, and many other charities serving the public good; were systematically ‘picked-off’ by the Commission and deregistered. Liberty Trust has been the only deregistered charity to have successfully challenged the Commission’s deregistration decision in the High Court. The Trust was reinstated as a charity on 15 April 2010. [Read more…]

Families Commission Funding Slashed – Stuff News

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Funding for the Families Commission has been slashed and the number of commissioners cut from seven to one.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett annouced the restructuring today.

Of the $32.48 million funding the Families Commission receives over four years, the Government would use a minimum of $14.2 million over four years to set up a new Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (SuPERU).

The Families Commission would be reduced to a single commissioner and would be governed by a board comprising public sector, philanthropic and academic representatives, Mrs Bennett said. [Read more…]

Environmental Defence Society Inc. – a registered charity ‘enforcing’ the law

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The Environmental Defence Society Inc. [“EDS”] was registered as a charity with the Charities Commission on 18 May 2007 (Reg. No. CC10297).

Its Society’s Rules (amended on 6 May 2003) were first filed with the Charities Commission on 3 November 2011, and the “ojectives” were approved by the Charities Commission Registration Team as constituting  “charitable purposes” under the Charities Act 2005. The Rules are available on the Charities Commission website (www.charities.govt.nz)

Section 2 of the ESA Rules – The Objectives – include:

2. (a) “To exercise the Society’s rights under the Resource Management Act 1991 or under any other applicable laws currently in force in New Zealand including (but without limitation) the right to make submissions, lodge appeals (including appeals on a question of law), apply to become a heritage protection authority or apply for a water conservation order; give notice of its intention to appear and call evidence at proceedings, apply for judicial review, apply for declarations or enforcement orders, or exercise any rights or objection.”

The term “charitable purpose”, as it occurs in the Charities Act 2005, would appear to have  been interpreted in this case by the Charities Commission, as applicable to all the political-environmental advocacy activities engaged in by EDS ….

… including supporting enforcement agencies to uphold such [envoronmental] standards as set out in law and encourag[ing] constructive debate and discussion in this area.

S. 2(c) empowers the charity EDS to exercise rights under applicable law to lodge appeals at all levels of the NZ Judicial System (Law Court and Tribunals), act in the quasi-judicial role of an envornmental authority, and exercise rights or objections to decisions issued by government agencies.

It is somewhat puzzling that a charitable entity such as EDS which received $144,7123 in government grants in the financial ended 31 March 2011, excists to “exercise its rights” to take legal action over the actions or lack of action of government agencies and/or its officers, and engage in such litigation as a registered charity. However, the wisdom of the Charities Commission, to grant charity status to EDS, given the nature of its objective, is no doubt sound and well-grounded.

EDS arguably engages in a level of “political advocacy” when it seeks to have the law changed or upheld on environmental protection matters. Its officers, some of whom are “contracted consultants” working for EDS, would no dobt see themselves as engaged in the “charitable purpose” of “advocating for the New Zealand environment” when it came to involvement in costly litigation. EDS spent $59,058 in “litigation supprt” in the financial year ended 31 March 2010.

EDS funded six full-time and three part-time “contracted consultants” in 2010/11 at a cost of $364,731. Its total income of $555,191 included $144,736 obtained from government grants, and $114,500 from other grants and sponsorship. Its total expenditure was $583,180.

ASH anti-smoking “lobby group” and registered charity – attacks Tobacco Industry

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The anti-smoking lobby group ASH New Zealand Inc. (“ASH”), a registered charity with the Charities Commission, has vowed to bring the Tobacco Industry “out of the shadows”  by “holding them to account”.  ASH [“Action on Smoking and Health”] – will continue its “attack” on the industry’s appalling record of having been responsible for causing the deaths of about 5,000New Zealanders per year, and expose how some of the industry’s sales reps are “targetting” many young vulnerable Maori and Polynesian girls. It also intends to continue its vigorous campaign against NZ retailers who it accuses of deliberately “enticing” children and young persons into taking up smoking through their immoral retail advertising of the “dangerous, deadly and addictive” product – tobacco.

ASH lobby group spokesperson Mr Ben Youdan has revealed in an interview on TVNZ that in response to anti-smoking lobby groups’ “targetting” of the Tobacco Industry, the industry has  issued “threats” of “law suits” with more anticipated – to be expected he implied – from an industry that “won’t take it [their attacks] lying down”. Attacks on the industry by lobby groups – even if they are registered charities and receive extensive government funding, as does charity-lobby group ASH ($592,892 in 2010/11: see below), are not taken kindly by Tobacco industry barons whose livelihoods are seen to be under threat from the zealous lobbyists. [Read more…]