February 22, 2025 • 11 mins
This week on the Sunday Panel, host of the NZ Herald’s weekly personal finance podcast, The Prosperity Project, Nadine Higgins and partner at Freebairn and Hehir Lawyers, Liam Hehir, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
The debate about charity tax exemptions was reignited following Destiny Church's antics over the weekend. Labour MP Phil Twyford has written to the charities regulator asking for Destiny Church to be struck off after their anti-LGBTQ stunts. What do we think of this?
Three Chinese Navy ships have been found off the coast of Sydney, including one of the most powerful in the navy’s fleet. Yesterday, the New Zealand Defence Force witnessed live rounds being fired from one of the warships. Is this a wake-up call?
Visitors to Albufeira may soon need to cover up when they walk around the popular coastal city under a new tourist code of conduct proposed by the city council. €1,500 could be issued if tourists are found wandering around the resort town in their swimwear. Do we need a similar rule?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks AB Time for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The Sunday Session Panel and today I'm joined by the
host of the New Zealand Herald weekly personal finance podcast,
The Prosperity Project, Nadine Higgins. Good morning, Helder.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
That's a bit of a mouth, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It is? But we keep I can manage a promise
and partner at Freemont and here lawyers Liam here? How
are you?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Liam? Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's me Hi, Liam?
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Hello, I'm very good, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Good good, good good?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Are The debate around charity status and tax exemption certainly
got reignited this week, didn't it, and all thanks to
Disney Church and the Labour MP Phil Twifird has written
to the Charities Regulator asking for Destney Church to be
struck off. Is this what should happen? Should Disney Church
(01:00):
have their charity status removed after their stunts last weekend?
I'll start with you, Liam, Well.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I think you've got to be very very careful about
the precedence is set here, especially the type of associational
liability that you know, with the idea that all destiny
entities would be deregistered as a result of the actions
of some of its members and of course including its leader.
To the president, you're going to be careful of, I
(01:27):
suppose is to think about the charities you do like
that tend to break the law. Green Priests, green pieces
of registered charity. Greenpeace members pretty flagrantly break the law.
They trespass all the time. Do you really want to
hand to to you know, political appointees the ability to
strip Greenpeace of their charitable registration based on law breaking.
(01:51):
I think phil twice it used to run OXFAM in
New Zealand. Oxfam to board of the school strike Climate.
You know, there's an argument that if you use the
requirements and the charities law to you know, be to
uphold order and not to cause scan all and things
like that, well, you know, as encouraging truancy going to
be a whoman that can be used against charities that
(02:12):
have supported the schools stripe for climate. So you've always
got to be thinking, I think, you know, I might
not like this charity, and I certainly hold no brief
for Destiny Church, but the rules that we make have
to be applied across the board and the precedency set
for the thing people you don't like will be used
against the people you do like.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Makes a very good point, then, Adine. It's kind of
we may all be horrified by the actions and the behavior,
but we've got to make sure that whatever precedent we
sent doesn't actually impact the charities who are working really,
really hard to benefit our communities.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Oh. I think it's fair to.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Say that charities are entitled to stand for things, because
otherwise what are they therefore, but most of the time
they're supposed to be there to stand up for vulnerable
people or vulnerable things like the environment, and in general,
if you're talking about breaking the law, I'm not sure
that you can equate truancy or maybe you know, sticking
(03:09):
your hand to the motorway or whatever to protest fossil
fuels with barricading people inside a library and accusations at
least of assault. I just think that those actions, I
know that they've been debated plenty over the past week.
(03:30):
But as a parent, you know, you get to make
a choice about where you take your children and what
you expose them to. And so someone else coming along
and purporting to be showing those children the difference between
right and wrong in such a way I just find
galling and so highly inappropriate that I think we should
(03:50):
be at least be having the debate. And look, I
know your guest earlier today pointed out that many of
the Destiny Church charities have been deregistered for failing to
file their returns, and that's a really important part of
being a charity, because we need to know, given that
they are a fan actively supported by the taxpayer, and
that they don't have to pay tax on their income,
(04:10):
and that we provide tax rebates to those who donate
to them, that they're doing what they are actually set
up to do, rather than just doing it to cover
whatever other a gender they might have.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And that raises the question of accountability and transparency.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Liam.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Yeah, so, I just I strongly believe in throwing the
book at people who know what Destiny Church did or
what its members did. You know to the extent that
law breaking your curd, sorry, the book at the people
who did it. And you know, perhaps you meet the
very y high threshold of organizational malfeasons, then you should
probably look at the organization term importantly to make the
(04:51):
stress is that you can't you can't say that because
you your values are that you are in favor of
fossil fuels that have been protested, or you're in favor
of this, or that that the law will look the
other way in some case and not others. Best in
the church venom might have some repugnant views, but they
are strongly how personal values that they have. And you
(05:14):
can't organize society around what your values and preferences are.
You've got to make rules with general.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Liam If you also haven't followed the charities rules and
you haven't filed your financial reports for two years, which
you should, then you should be being looked at anyway.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Oh absolutely, And so it comes back to the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Charity and how well we're actually how well it's working
and functioning, because it seems like there's been a lot
of reasons why this this, this organization should have been
looked at.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I'm a member of the Charities Law Association of New
Zealand like Sue Baker, and that charities are the registers
not filing their charitable worth turns all the time, right,
It's very common, but it's a it's an administrative function,
and you know what you shouldn't do is You shouldn't
apply different rules to different charities based on whether or
(06:03):
not people in the media or the labor Party like
them or not. You have to apply the same rules
across the board in terms of giving warnings. They're giving
an opportunity to file those returns and look at them
just like everyone else. We are everyone is them titled
to have their own views, and we do not apply
different rules based on the views that they have.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Should we should the financial statements of charities be made public?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Liam?
Speaker 5 (06:26):
They are okay, even like you look it up. You
look up for the Charities register.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You can only if they file their returns.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Yeah, and if you do not file your returns, you
get struck off and you're going to pay a massive,
massive tax bills at that point once you're struck off
on your accumulated capitals. So this you know, the system
needs some improvement in different ways, but you cannot. We
can't weaponize it against charities they just happen to not
like or disagree with it.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Would I would agree with Liam and that the approach
needs to be consistent across all charities so that you're
not just picking and choosing the ones you do or
do not agree with but I do think that there
has to be a standard of behavior for the activities
that are sanctioned by said charity. And sure there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Are some things that happen in a protest that disrupt
the peace, but that is not the same as stretching
as far as to intimidation and allegedly assault. And I
still know that anyone that's associated with that charity and
doing things in the name of that charity needs to
be held accountable for those actions. And we have to
(07:34):
question whether are those actually charitable purposes.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
We well, promotion of religion of the charitble purpose. As
to intimidation and assault, we do regulate them. It's called
the Crimes Act. And if you have sut someone, you're
liable to be prosecuted ass of assault. You know that
is your focus? Is that have to be on that.
It's not on using other legal needs to try and
(07:58):
promote the causes you like and don't like. You know,
it's through that type of indirect punishment. All right.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I want to move on these Chinese warships in Australia
because I think this is very much a wake up
call for New Zealand. I think the visit is China
is sending a very strong message here that they are
intending to see what the response is from Australia and
New Zealand and quite potentially spend a lot more time
in the Tasman as they sort of encroach their way
through the Pacific. Are we prepared for this kind of presence?
(08:28):
Do you think, Nadine? And do you think we should
have a stronger response to it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I don't think that we're prepared for this type of presence,
but I guess we've been sitting on the sidelines of
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
The difficult diplomacy between China and Australia and China and
the US, and if anything, to me, what this suggests
is that we might not continue to have the liberty
to just sort of sit on the sidelines and can
you to export as much as we possibly can to
China and try and stay out of those more difficult
(09:04):
diplomatic discussions.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Liam, Yeah, it is. It's really hard, because you know,
we do treasure having an independent foreign policy. You talk
about being unprepared, Well, what more could we do. We're
never going to build a navy that's going to be
an affected to terrent, to the to the to the
people's liberation navy. We're always you know that we could
spend everything we have on a navy and we would
(09:29):
still be nothing up against them in terms of Chinese
military power, and so you know, in terms of our
independence that really gets stressed, right, could be are the
forced to choose one or the other because we can't
go alone by ourselves. So I mean, I think the
painful result is that we are just going to have
to front up for the fact that we are reliant
(09:49):
on the Western security system and we're going to have
to integrate more closely with it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Very very quickly. Before you both go. A popular beach
in Portugal has banned togs. It's a fifteen hundred euro
could be issued of tourists wandering around the resort town
and they're swim where so fine at the beach. It's
the whole you know, togs togs undis situation again. But
I'm telling you what, five hundred euros is quite substantial.
(10:18):
If you have found wandering around the resort town in
your swim where would that be you, Nadine, would you
off to a cafe?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I mean possibly pre children it might have been, but
at these days possibly not. I wonder whether this is
actually more about the fact that this is a destination
for bachelor and bachelorette parties, and so potentially what they're
trying to deter is the kind of behavior that is
happening in their togs in parties like that, rather than
(10:50):
necessarily a distaste for.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Human flesh in the town center.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
What are your thoughts then, Fine for the kids, right,
but maybe adults could you know?
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Well, yeah, I know, and I'm almost forty now, and
I look in the mirror and I think if I
got fifteen hundred dollars fine for walking around on my
togs only, I would think I'll be getting off lightly.
I would be grateful that this Portugal was so merciful
towards me, because yeah, I mean, look, it's there is
a sort of there's meant to be this sort of
(11:20):
a suppose unwritten social understanding about what's appropriate and what's not,
and obviously it's broken down and how the law's going
to step in, Like fifteen hundred seems a lot, but
also it's not a whole lot to expect to have
a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Doing the nicely sued Liam, Thank you both so much.
That was lawyer Liam here and host of the Prosperity Project,
Nadine Higgins. The Prosperity Project is out now on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks AB Time for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The Sunday Session Panel and today I'm joined by the
host of the New Zealand Herald weekly personal finance podcast,
The Prosperity Project, Nadine Higgins. Good morning, Helder.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
That's a bit of a mouth, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It is? But we keep I can manage a promise
and partner at Freemont and here lawyers Liam here? How
are you?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Liam? Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
That's me Hi, Liam?
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Hello, I'm very good, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Good good, good good?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Right?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Are The debate around charity status and tax exemption certainly
got reignited this week, didn't it, and all thanks to
Disney Church and the Labour MP Phil Twifird has written
to the Charities Regulator asking for Destney Church to be
struck off. Is this what should happen? Should Disney Church
(01:00):
have their charity status removed after their stunts last weekend?
I'll start with you, Liam, Well.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
I think you've got to be very very careful about
the precedence is set here, especially the type of associational
liability that you know, with the idea that all destiny
entities would be deregistered as a result of the actions
of some of its members and of course including its leader.
To the president, you're going to be careful of, I
(01:27):
suppose is to think about the charities you do like
that tend to break the law. Green Priests, green pieces
of registered charity. Greenpeace members pretty flagrantly break the law.
They trespass all the time. Do you really want to
hand to to you know, political appointees the ability to
strip Greenpeace of their charitable registration based on law breaking.
(01:51):
I think phil twice it used to run OXFAM in
New Zealand. Oxfam to board of the school strike Climate.
You know, there's an argument that if you use the
requirements and the charities law to you know, be to
uphold order and not to cause scan all and things
like that, well, you know, as encouraging truancy going to
be a whoman that can be used against charities that
(02:12):
have supported the schools stripe for climate. So you've always
got to be thinking, I think, you know, I might
not like this charity, and I certainly hold no brief
for Destiny Church, but the rules that we make have
to be applied across the board and the precedency set
for the thing people you don't like will be used
against the people you do like.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Makes a very good point, then, Adine. It's kind of
we may all be horrified by the actions and the behavior,
but we've got to make sure that whatever precedent we
sent doesn't actually impact the charities who are working really,
really hard to benefit our communities.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Oh. I think it's fair to.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Say that charities are entitled to stand for things, because
otherwise what are they therefore, but most of the time
they're supposed to be there to stand up for vulnerable
people or vulnerable things like the environment, and in general,
if you're talking about breaking the law, I'm not sure
that you can equate truancy or maybe you know, sticking
(03:09):
your hand to the motorway or whatever to protest fossil
fuels with barricading people inside a library and accusations at
least of assault. I just think that those actions, I
know that they've been debated plenty over the past week.
(03:30):
But as a parent, you know, you get to make
a choice about where you take your children and what
you expose them to. And so someone else coming along
and purporting to be showing those children the difference between
right and wrong in such a way I just find
galling and so highly inappropriate that I think we should
(03:50):
be at least be having the debate. And look, I
know your guest earlier today pointed out that many of
the Destiny Church charities have been deregistered for failing to
file their returns, and that's a really important part of
being a charity, because we need to know, given that
they are a fan actively supported by the taxpayer, and
that they don't have to pay tax on their income,
(04:10):
and that we provide tax rebates to those who donate
to them, that they're doing what they are actually set
up to do, rather than just doing it to cover
whatever other a gender they might have.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And that raises the question of accountability and transparency.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Liam.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Yeah, so, I just I strongly believe in throwing the
book at people who know what Destiny Church did or
what its members did. You know to the extent that
law breaking your curd, sorry, the book at the people
who did it. And you know, perhaps you meet the
very y high threshold of organizational malfeasons, then you should
probably look at the organization term importantly to make the
(04:51):
stress is that you can't you can't say that because
you your values are that you are in favor of
fossil fuels that have been protested, or you're in favor
of this, or that that the law will look the
other way in some case and not others. Best in
the church venom might have some repugnant views, but they
are strongly how personal values that they have. And you
(05:14):
can't organize society around what your values and preferences are.
You've got to make rules with general.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Liam If you also haven't followed the charities rules and
you haven't filed your financial reports for two years, which
you should, then you should be being looked at anyway.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
Oh absolutely, And so it comes back to the.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Charity and how well we're actually how well it's working
and functioning, because it seems like there's been a lot
of reasons why this this, this organization should have been
looked at.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I'm a member of the Charities Law Association of New
Zealand like Sue Baker, and that charities are the registers
not filing their charitable worth turns all the time, right,
It's very common, but it's a it's an administrative function,
and you know what you shouldn't do is You shouldn't
apply different rules to different charities based on whether or
(06:03):
not people in the media or the labor Party like
them or not. You have to apply the same rules
across the board in terms of giving warnings. They're giving
an opportunity to file those returns and look at them
just like everyone else. We are everyone is them titled
to have their own views, and we do not apply
different rules based on the views that they have.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Should we should the financial statements of charities be made public?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Liam?
Speaker 5 (06:26):
They are okay, even like you look it up. You
look up for the Charities register.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You can only if they file their returns.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Yeah, and if you do not file your returns, you
get struck off and you're going to pay a massive,
massive tax bills at that point once you're struck off
on your accumulated capitals. So this you know, the system
needs some improvement in different ways, but you cannot. We
can't weaponize it against charities they just happen to not
like or disagree with it.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Would I would agree with Liam and that the approach
needs to be consistent across all charities so that you're
not just picking and choosing the ones you do or
do not agree with but I do think that there
has to be a standard of behavior for the activities
that are sanctioned by said charity. And sure there.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Are some things that happen in a protest that disrupt
the peace, but that is not the same as stretching
as far as to intimidation and allegedly assault. And I
still know that anyone that's associated with that charity and
doing things in the name of that charity needs to
be held accountable for those actions. And we have to
(07:34):
question whether are those actually charitable purposes.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
We well, promotion of religion of the charitble purpose. As
to intimidation and assault, we do regulate them. It's called
the Crimes Act. And if you have sut someone, you're
liable to be prosecuted ass of assault. You know that
is your focus? Is that have to be on that.
It's not on using other legal needs to try and
(07:58):
promote the causes you like and don't like. You know,
it's through that type of indirect punishment. All right.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I want to move on these Chinese warships in Australia
because I think this is very much a wake up
call for New Zealand. I think the visit is China
is sending a very strong message here that they are
intending to see what the response is from Australia and
New Zealand and quite potentially spend a lot more time
in the Tasman as they sort of encroach their way
through the Pacific. Are we prepared for this kind of presence?
(08:28):
Do you think, Nadine? And do you think we should
have a stronger response to it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I don't think that we're prepared for this type of presence,
but I guess we've been sitting on the sidelines of
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
The difficult diplomacy between China and Australia and China and
the US, and if anything, to me, what this suggests
is that we might not continue to have the liberty
to just sort of sit on the sidelines and can
you to export as much as we possibly can to
China and try and stay out of those more difficult
(09:04):
diplomatic discussions.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Liam, Yeah, it is. It's really hard, because you know,
we do treasure having an independent foreign policy. You talk
about being unprepared, Well, what more could we do. We're
never going to build a navy that's going to be
an affected to terrent, to the to the to the
people's liberation navy. We're always you know that we could
spend everything we have on a navy and we would
(09:29):
still be nothing up against them in terms of Chinese
military power, and so you know, in terms of our
independence that really gets stressed, right, could be are the
forced to choose one or the other because we can't
go alone by ourselves. So I mean, I think the
painful result is that we are just going to have
to front up for the fact that we are reliant
(09:49):
on the Western security system and we're going to have
to integrate more closely with it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Very very quickly. Before you both go. A popular beach
in Portugal has banned togs. It's a fifteen hundred euro
could be issued of tourists wandering around the resort town
and they're swim where so fine at the beach. It's
the whole you know, togs togs undis situation again. But
I'm telling you what, five hundred euros is quite substantial.
(10:18):
If you have found wandering around the resort town in
your swim where would that be you, Nadine, would you
off to a cafe?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I mean possibly pre children it might have been, but
at these days possibly not. I wonder whether this is
actually more about the fact that this is a destination
for bachelor and bachelorette parties, and so potentially what they're
trying to deter is the kind of behavior that is
happening in their togs in parties like that, rather than
(10:50):
necessarily a distaste for.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Human flesh in the town center.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
What are your thoughts then, Fine for the kids, right,
but maybe adults could you know?
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Well, yeah, I know, and I'm almost forty now, and
I look in the mirror and I think if I
got fifteen hundred dollars fine for walking around on my
togs only, I would think I'll be getting off lightly.
I would be grateful that this Portugal was so merciful
towards me, because yeah, I mean, look, it's there is
a sort of there's meant to be this sort of
(11:20):
a suppose unwritten social understanding about what's appropriate and what's not,
and obviously it's broken down and how the law's going
to step in, Like fifteen hundred seems a lot, but
also it's not a whole lot to expect to have
a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Doing the nicely sued Liam, Thank you both so much.
That was lawyer Liam here and host of the Prosperity Project,
Nadine Higgins. The Prosperity Project is out now on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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