Legislation Notes

Question and Answers: New Charities Act

The following Q & A's come from a government release.

What does the Charities Act do? The Act establishes a Charities Commission as an autonomous Crown entity.

What will the Charities Commission do? The Commission will have two main functions. One is to provide an education and support role to the charitable sector. The other will be to register and monitor charitable entities that wish to keep or obtain income tax exempt status. The Commission will also:

  • promote public trust in charitable organisations;
  • encourage best practice in governance and use of resources of charitable organisations;
  • provide advice on matters relating to charities to the government; and
  • promote or undertake research into matters relating to charities.

When will the Commission come into being? The Charities Act establishes the Charities Commission from 1 July 2005. The register of charities will not come into existence until 2006 and the taxation provisions will not apply until 2007.

Who will the Commissioners be and how are they being appointed? There are 378 applicants for Commission board membership. Five to seven people will be appointed by the Minister for the Voluntary and Community Sector, in consultation with his Ministerial colleagues and an interview panel comprising Dame Catherine Tizard, Dame Margaret Bazley, Tony Dale and a senior official from the Department of Internal Affairs. It is expected appointments will be made in June.

Does my organisation have to register? Registration is not mandatory. However, charitable organisations wanting to retain or gain tax exempt status will need to register by a future date yet to be set (this date is likely to be decided in 2006).

What advantages will there be from being registered? How will members of the public be able to identify a registered charity? The main advantages are eligibility for the exemption on income tax and the positive "branding" associated with registration. There is no requirement to display the organisation's registration number on all materials but organisations can use the number in that way if they want to. Internet and telephone collectors will be required to provide the registration number on request.

If my organisation wants to register, when does it need to do this by? Charitable organisations will not be required to register this year. The register will not be up and running until March 2006 at the earliest and there will be a reasonable transition period after that before registration will be necessary to retain or obtain an exemption from income tax.

How will the registration process work? Both online and paper registration will be possible.

What about my organisation's tax exemption - do we lose this? If your organisation does not register with the Commission by a future date, which will be determined in 2006 or 2007, it will no longer have tax exempt status.

How much will it cost to register an organisation? Initial registration will be free of charge.

What about ongoing costs? Following registration, registered entities will need to file an annual return. Annual return fees will be set at $50 (GST incl) for online filing and $75 (GST incl) for paper based annual returns but charities with an annual income of $10,000 or less (GST excl) will be exempt from the fee.

What information will I be required to supply? This will be set out in regulations made under the Act.

Will there be consultation on the regulations made under the Act? Yes, there will be consultation on the forms proposed under regulation. That process will start later this year.

Who will be able to access the information supplied for registration? Information on the register will be publicly available. However, there may be circumstances where certain information provided for registration or that would otherwise appear on the register may be withheld for privacy or other reasons.

How will the sector know when to register and what to do? The Charities Commission will provide information and will communicate extensively with the sector in the lead up to the registration system coming into force.

How will the Commission be funded? The Crown will fully fund the Commission's operational costs for 2004/05 and 2005/06 and will part-fund the Commission in 2006/07. The Crown will fund all the initial development and running costs of the register. The Commission's funding requirements will be reviewed for 2007/08 and out years.

Which government department will be responsible for monitoring the Commission? The Department of Internal Affairs will be responsible for monitoring the Charities Commission. Formal responsibility for the legislation will transfer from the Ministry of Economic Development to the Department on 1 July 2005. MED and DIA are already working closely together, along with other key agencies like the Inland Revenue Department and the Office of the Community and Voluntary Sector. For more information: www.charities.govt.nz

New Laws Related to Sexual Offending

Legislation passed in Parliament recently (the Crimes Amendment Bill No 2) toughens penalties for sexual offending, widens protection against sexual predators and makes sexual offences gender neutral.

Ensuring that sex offences are expressed and applied in a gender-neutral manner means females can now be prosecuted for having sexual relationships with boys aged under 16. The legislation extends offences that currently refer to "sexual intercourse" to cover all forms of sexual connection, in recognition that all forms of sexual violation are as grave and intrusive as sexual intercourse.

The maximum penalty for sexual connection with a young person aged 12-16 is raised from seven years to 10 years' jail, while the existing 12-month time limit on bringing a prosecution is removed. The penalty for sexual connection with a child under 12 is up to 14 years' jail.

In addition, a new offence of sexual grooming, carrying a maximum penalty of seven years' jail, is created to protect young children from habitual sexual offenders who identify and then cultivate relationships with potential victims. The new offence will ensure that people grooming children for sexual abuse can be prosecuted before the actual abuse takes place.

The offence of incest has also been extended. A new offence of familial sexual abuse, covering all forms of sexual connection, will protect those under the age of 18 from abuse of a power relationship. The offence covers a wider range of relationships including foster parents, adoptive parents, guardianship and those related by marriage.

New Citizenship Laws

Parliament has passed legislation halving the life of a NZ passport, and requiring those seeking citizenship to wait five years, instead of three. The Identity Citizenship and Travel Identity Bill also gives the Minister of Internal Affairs powers to refuse to issue a passport on the grounds of national security. Passports will be issued every five years, not ten, to help prevent forgeries. And from next year, children born in NZ will have to have at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident to get citizenship. There is an exemption for abandoned children.

Thanks to "NewsRoom"

Fiordland Marine Management Bill Becomes Law

A new law establishing unique local management of the special environment of the South Island fiords has passed through Parliament. The Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine Management Bill 2004 gives effect to management measures proposed by the Guardians of Fiordland for Fiordland's marine environment.

The bill:

  • recognises the local, national and international importance of Fiordland's marine environment;
  • creates the Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine Area, encompassing 882,000 hectares including Milford and Doubtful Sounds;
  • creates eight new marine reserves, totalling about 9520 hectares, adding to existing reserves, and increasing the percentage of the fiords area in marine reserves from 1 to 13 percent;
  • provides legislative recognition of the Fiordland Marine Guardians, to advise the government and Environment Southland; and
  • provides for the more effective management of "marine areas of special significance", areas identified by the Guardians for their special and ecologically fragile features.

For more information, go to www.mfe.govt.nz

Covert Filming Bill Introduced

Making, publishing or distributing voyeuristic material recorded without consent will carry a penalty of up to three years' jail under this proposed legislation. The Intimate Covert Filming Bill would also carry a penalty of up to one year's jail for knowingly possessing such material without reasonable cause.

This Bill would make it an offence to surreptitiously film intimate situations involving nudity, partial nudity, or sexual or other intimacy where people would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, for example, covertly recording them in toilets, changing sheds or in their homes. The Bill would also enable Police to use their powers of search and seizure to immediately investigate the source of images discovered on the Internet. Later this year Cabinet will consider Privacy Act amendments that would allow victims of covert filming to seek redress against offenders.

SFO to Handle Criminal Asset Seizures

Under new Proceeds of Crime legislation to be introduced by the government, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) would handle asset recovery work The legislation would establish a civil forfeiture regime that would allow the state to confiscate assets determined by the Court to represent the proceeds of crime on civil court standards of balance of probability, without having to secure a criminal conviction. At the centre of the new legislation would be the creation of an asset recovery body, involving an estimated 20 staff, within the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to target and track the wealth of organised crime bosses.

Nitrous Oxide Imports for Misuse Illegal

After a review of the law last month, the import, sale, possession and use of nitrous oxide as a "recreational drug", instead of as a prescription medicine, was found to contravene the Medicines Act 1981. As such, the Medicines Act provides mechanisms to prevent the import, sale, possession, and use of nitrous oxide for inhalation for non-medical purposes.

So, all importers of nitrous oxide (sometimes referred to as "nos") will now need to be able to demonstrate to the NZ Customs Service that their imports comply with the importation requirements of the Medicines Act 1981. Importers are being warned that imports under the guise of sham sales for cream dispensing will not be allowed.

Nitrous oxide is used as a fuel in some high performance engines and as a propellant in some foods such as whipped cream; those uses will continue, so long as they too do not lead to unlawful inhalation uses.

Registered Architects Bill Passed

This legislation is a companion measure to the Building Act 2004. It repeals the Architects Act 1963 and introduces a modern regulatory framework for the regulation of the occupation.

Appointments

Government Statistician Brian Pink has been appointed as Chairman of the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS).

New appointments to the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board (GIAB) are: Mark Billinghurst, Wendell Dunn, Margaret McLeod, Peter Maire, Russell Marshall, Peter Menzies, and Pauline Winter. Also, Ann Sherry will chair the board during this second term. Re-appointed for a second term as GIAB members were Peter Biggs, Rick Christie, Brian Easton, Theresa Gattung, Craig Norgate, Stephen Tindall and Ross Wilson.

Members of the new Cancer Control Council are: Dame Catherine Tizard (chair), Dr Chris Atkinson (deputy chair), Associate Professor Tony Blakely, Ms Yvonne Boyes, Dr Garry Forgeson, Professor John Gavin, Ms Helen Glasgow, Dr Scott Macfarlane and Dr Beverly Lawton.

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