Charities Services continues efforts to deregister Family First

Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

Family First NZ has received notification that Charities Services, previously called the Charities Commission, intends to continue its attempts to deregister the charity.

Family First is appealing the decision and it will be heard in the High Court at Wellington early next year.

The group was advised in 2013 the Charities Commission intended to deregister the charity, citing Family First’s traditional view of marriage being one man and one woman as one of the reasons.

“Family First gained approval as a charity eight years ago, has also passed two ‘audits’ – one as recently as 2010 – and have made no change to the nature of our operations,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“It appears that only the opinion of the Commission has changed,” he said.

The group had hoped the issue would be resolved after a Supreme Court ruling in favour of Greenpeace in August.

The court ruled that Charities Act didn’t limit advocacy from a charity unless it was no more than ancillary to its charitable purpose, and also found that a political purpose could also be a charitable one.

Charities Services is arguing the issue is about public benefit.

The Board’s position is that Family First’s main purpose is to promote particular points of view about family life.

The say that under the Act promotion of a controversial point of view is a political purpose.

It says that Family First does not advance religion or education, nor promote a benefit to all New Zealanders as determined by the Act.

“When a group who promotes the natural family as a fundamental social unit is deemed of ‘no public benefit’, you know a country is in deep trouble,” say McCoskrie.

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