Incorporated Societies Bill Introduced to Parliament
31 March 2021
It has been a long time coming but on 17th March 2021 the Incorporated Societies Bill was introduced to Parliament.
The purpose of this bill is to put in place a modern framework of basic legal, governance, and accountability obligations for incorporated societies and those who run them.
The regime to be put in place by the Bill is guided by the following broad policy objectives:
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members of a society have the primary responsibility for holding the society to account; and
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a society should promote the trust and confidence of its members; and
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a society should be self-governing; and
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a society should not distribute profits to its members.
While the Bill is a new, stand-alone, statute it does not depart from the underlying principles of the current law on incorporated societies. However, some of this law was not previously contained in the 1908 Act, but has instead built up in case law over time. As a result of this, when the Bill and the 1908 Act are directly compared it can appear that new onerous obligations are being imposed on societies when this is not the case.
Clubs New Zealand will be working to fully understand the implications and benefits that the bill provides as well as the steps clubs and Clubs New Zealand are going to have to take to update or rewrite our constitutions.
As updates and relevant information come to hand we will share the information here on the Clubs New Zealand website. If you have any questions in the mean time please contact the National Office on 0800 4 CLUBS.
