Thursday, 25 September 2025
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the key reforms introduced by the Charities Amendment Act 2023, including governance and officer requirements
- Learn how to implement the new compliance obligations in annual reporting and structural reviews
Description
Attend and earn 1 CPD hour
* This interactive online recording includes questions and quizzes requiring critical thinking about the topics, so you have no annual limits to the number of points/hours you can claim with this format of learning. Please verify with your CPD rules
Chair
Dr. Juliet Chevalier-Watts, Associate Professor in Law, University of Waikato
Navigating the Charities Amendment Act (2023)
- Introduces a statutory duty to review their ‘governance procedures every three years’ to ensure they are ‘fit for purpose’
- New forms for filing annual financial returns
- New stringent guidelines for officers and amendment to the s 5 definition
Presented by Susan Barker, Director, Sue Barker Charities Law
Presenters
Dr Juliet Chevalier-Watts, PhD, PGCLT, LLM (Distinction), LLB(Hons), BA (Hons). Associate Professor in Law, Research Convenor and former Co-Director Waikato Public Law and Policy Research UnitJuliet is a specialist in charity law, equity and trusts, and religious law. Juliet’s recent contributions to the literature includes the monographs "The Law of Religion in New Zealand" and the 2nd edition of the "Law of Charity" (with a 3rd edition on its way), and the OUP article "Advocating for the environment, charity law and Greenpeace: A New Zealand perspective". Juliet has authored 4 other books, several book chapters, numerous journal articles, as well as giving radio interviews and podcasts, and producing a number of commissioned reports.
Susan Barker, Director, Sue Barker Charities Law
Sue Barker is the director of Sue Barker Charities Law, a boutique law firm based in Wellington specialising in charities law and public tax law. Since its founding in 2012, the firm has won several awards, including Boutique Law Firm of the Year at the New Zealand Law Awards. Sue is the author of Taxation of Charities in Aotearoa New Zealand (LexisNexis, 2025) and a contributor to a number of other charities law publications, including The Law and Practice of Charities in Aotearoa New Zealand 2ed (LexisNexis, 2024). Sue is also a director of the Charity Law Association of Australia and New Zealand and is recognised internationally as a Charity Law Scholar. In 2019, Sue was awarded the New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellowship Te Karahipi Rangahau ā Taiao, New Zealand’s premier legal research award, to undertake research into the question “What does a world-leading framework of charities law look like?”. The final report from the Fellowship, entitled Focus on purpose, was released in April 2022 making 70 recommendations for charities law reform in Aotearoa New Zealand. More information about Sue and the research can be found at www.charitieslaw.co and www.charitieslawreform.nz.
