Yvonne van Dongen
Veteran NZ journo incredulous gender ideology escaped the lab. Won’t rest until reality makes a comeback.
The desire to be viewed as woke is big business for the charity sector.
In a bid to be seen as a safe and welcoming employer, organisations have signed on for workshops run by non-profits that offer a tick or accreditation.
For an initial cost followed by an annual renewal fee, an organisation can earn a rainbow tick, gender tick, cultural intelligence tick, wellbeing tick, health tick, accessibility tick, domestic violence free tick, the pride pledge and/or a brain badge. Some charities do not offer ticks but promise accreditation in the diversity, equity and inclusion space.
The charity industrial complex in this country is thriving.
New Zealand has over 28,000 registered charities. Some like the Superdiversity Institute (offering a cultural intelligence tick), are so new they have yet to file returns to the charities commission. Other diversity charities like Gender Minorities Aotearoa started recently (2020), while a few, like Diversity Works, have been operating for more than a decade.
Some earn in the tens of thousands while others earn hundreds of thousands or even millions. In the last financial year Diversity Works (DW), formerly The Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, had a total annual income of over $2m earned through donations, fund-raising and the like and over $700k providing services. Coca Cola, Internal Affairs, the Public Services Commisssion and Te Puni Kokiri have been through a DW programme.
Their fees are advertised as $2400 for evaluation, which includes an evidence assessment, a practical assessment and an interview. Annual professional registration is $275.
The sexuality and gender space is represented by many groups. Not all offer ticks or accreditation. Some offer membership or simply education. Most promote the unscientific falsehoods inherent in gender ideology such as sex is mutable and there are more than two sexes. In other words, transwomen are women.
This unscientific advice doesn’t come cheap. InsideOut, a national charity representing the rainbow community, runs courses at $750 an hour plus GST for government agencies or corporates: $350 an hour plus GST for NGOS. Ten years ago InsideOut had a total income of just over $7000. Their latest accounts show an income of $1.18m.
Rainbow Youth (RY) has an income of $1.9m. Funding comes from services rendered to organisations, trust grants and central and local governments. Central government paid RY over $500,000 for the year ended 2022; local government’s contribution was over $200,000. Other grants total over $400,000. RY run workshops at a cost of $2000–$2500 plus GST on gender and sexuality
Rainbow Tick (RT) is probably the most well known of the rainbow accrediting organisations. Over 100 organisations have the RT certification, organisations as diverse as Auckland Grammar, Ministry for the Environment, MinterEllisonRuddWatts, the New Zealand Intelligence Community, the New Zealand Rugby Union and Z Energy.
RT now belongs to Kāhui Tū Kaha, a Ngāti Whātua owned not-for-profit. In the last financial year Kāhui Tū Kaha earned over $82m.
The New Zealand Defence Force has held RT accreditation since 2019 For the 2018/19 financial year, the programme fee was $10,000. Subsequently, the fee has been $12,000 per annum and has been paid to 30 June 2023.
The costs of an RT programme were queried as early as 2014 when the charity started. An article in the gay publication express said they had been contacted by someone working in a “notable institution” who was quoted $20,000 for the entire package for a five-year period if paid in full or $5000 per year for a five year period.
The ideology promoted by these gender and sexuality education organisations has been rejected by most New Zealanders. Polls showed that a majority of respondents did not support the introduction of sex self-ID in law. Most of the submissions to the select committee were also against the law change.
As well, a September 2023 Curia poll showed that over 70 per cent of New Zealanders did not believe primary children should be taught gender ideology. Over half supported a ban on gender affirming treatment for under 18s.
Their views mirror overseas trends. Resistance is building against the automatic affirmation of gender dysphoria for afflicted young people. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) became the first medical body in the country to acknowledge shifting international evidence on transgender healthcare and puberty blockers. The college declined to endorse gender-affirming care as the key intervention for gender dysphoric children, It acknowledged the plight of detransitioners, who it noted had reported being harmed by medical transition.
The college has also issued an unambiguous statement defining sex as a biological characteristic – a statement in opposition to the notion put forward by trans activists that sex is a concept related to identity rather than a binary state.
Rainbow Tick is firmly embedded in the gender camp. As such, membership can have a chilling effect on alternative standpoints.
Readers may remember that one of the qualms an Auckland museum staff member raised about hosting the Fantastic Beasts show was that it might have an impact on the museum’s Rainbow Tick. (The Spinoff, Dec 13, 2023) The museum eventually opted for not hosting a show that would have been immensely popular and earned it considerable income.
The concerned staff member may have remembered the Rainbow Tick statement on their website, which could be regarded as a veiled threat. “An organisation that is seen to be discriminatory or insensitive in this area can expect fast, negative and often costly consequences.”
Readers may also recall that earlier last year two radio hosts were censured and required to undergo training after objecting to various tenets of gender ideology such as requiring correct pronouns in communication or referring to pregnant women as pregnant people. Twenty-four hours later the hosts offered abject apologies and were supposed to undergo Rainbow Tick training. The closure of the station soon after may have rendered this unnecessary.
Charities that promote propaganda can be deregistered. The promotion of propaganda was behind the deregistering of Family First, a conservative family advocacy group. Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church was removed from the register for failing to file returns.
Business is a key activity for many charities. A 2018 report on the sector from Inland Revenue and the Treasury estimated that about 30 per cent of registered charities may be involved in some sort of trading activity. The report noted that an increasing amount of business income was moving into the tax-exempt charity sector and a growing number of start-up businesses were registering as charities and seeking donations.
The free-wheeling nature of the New Zealand charity sector is not mirrored overseas. Adjunct Fellow, Department of Accounting & Information Systems University of Canterbury, Dr Michael Gousmett says “the sorts of things that happen in the commercial sector regarding charities in New Zealand would not be permitted in the United Kingdom”.
For instance Waikato Tainui who own Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust and Group, have assets valued at over $2b and own 45 limited companies, none paying tax. That’s fine if their businesses are related to the purpose of the charity but, if it’s not, it is unfair to those who do pay. He cites the purchase of a new hotel at Auckland airport as an example. They are part-owners of the five-star, nine-level hotel with Auckland Airport. While other hotel operators are obliged to pay tax, they do not have to.
However the regulator in the charities arena, Charity Services (part of Internal Affairs) is not proactive. It only steps in following a complaint.
Gousmett says churches are among the charitable institutions doing well in this climate. In the last two years mainstream churches increased their cash reserves by $249m. That does not include land and investments.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
