Te Whānau o Waipareira Trust

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The Charities Registration Board has issued its decision on the charitable status of Te Whānau O Waipareira Trust.

In accordance with section 55D of the Charities Act 2005 the Board has ruled not to deregister CC31649 (the Trust) from the Charities Register.

In its decision, the Board concluded Waipareira Trust had addressed the structure and governance issues set out in its preliminary deregistration notice in September 2024, at sufficient scale and magnitude to maintain its charitable status, namely:

• It has accepted errors in its interpretation of its statutory obligations and has taken professional advice regarding remediation
• It is restructuring its affairs to clearly distinguish between charitable and non-charitable activities.

In particular, the Trust:

• Created a legal entity that will share governance with the Trust, but not funding, to differentiate between charitable and non-charitable activity and their funding streams
• Made changes to remuneration of key staff
• Implemented a new conflict of interest policy
• Reversed non-charitable loans and bonus payments.

The Board is satisfied these corrective measures demonstrate that any non-charitable purposes previously evidenced through the Trust’s activities have been removed and that the Trust’s current purposes are exclusively charitable within the meaning of the Charities Act 2005.

“This was a difficult and prolonged case with the test for ‘serious wrongdoing’ being necessarily high. The decision not to deregister was complex. Had significant remediation not been taken, the Board’s decision would likely have been different,” says Jane Wrightson, Chair of the Charities Registration Board.

The Trust’s corrective measures will be subject to ongoing monitoring by the charities’ regulator, the Department of Internal Affairs.

No further comment will be made.

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