Sector Position Statement from the Independent Table Tennis Association of New Zealand (ITTANZ)

Sector Position Statement Topic: Voting ages within Incorporated Societies 

On 5th October 2023, the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 came into force in New Zealand. 

Of particular compliance interest to any Table Tennis Club that operates under the legal entity of an Incorporated Society, the new Act stands alone and apart from the old 1908 Act, as of 05/04/2026. 

Existing Incorporated Societies must re-register under the new Act, and assume the requirements of the new Act, on re-registration (even if this re-registration is completed before 05/04/2026). 

If an Incorporated Society chooses not to re-register before 05/04/2026, it will simply cease to exist. 

Of particular interest to ITTANZ is the opportunity the new Act provides to tidy up the issue relating to Incorporated Societies' members' voting ages at SGMs and AGMs. 

The old 1908 Act and the new 2002 Act were and are silent on this issue, which had led a small number of Incorporated Societies to enter into a realm of what the New Zealand Supreme Court refers to as voting age "absurdities" within their respective organizations. 

A voting age "absurdity" is when minors (the Supreme Court refers to minors as “infants & children") of an Incorporated Society are permitted to vote at an SGM or AGM on Society business outside their realm of understanding, capacity, or agency. 

Disturbingly, some real-life examples of this absurdity reported to ITTANZ that has occurred within the Table Tennis sector have included:

a/ Minors voting to approve or amend Society accounts; 

b/ Minors voting to appoint or exclude Society Office holders; 

c/ Minors voting on Society operational matters, asset procurement, and professional service engagement.

The NZ Supreme Court term of "absence of absurdity" concerning voting ages was referenced in a 2022 Court case, when a youth political lobby group (Make it 16), petitioned the Court to make a declaration that there was an inconsistency when considering voting age rights between the NZ Bill of Rights Act 1990, the Electoral Act 1993, and the Local Electoral Act 2001. 

On 21 November 2022, Justice Ellen France gave the Supreme Court's judgment on Make It 16's case that the voting age of 18 was unjustified age discrimination. 

Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann,  and Justices Susan Glazebrook, Mark O'Regan, and Ellen France ruled in the majority that the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993 and Local Electoral Act 2001 were inconsistent with the right to be free from discrimination based on age and that they had not been justified under section 5 of the Bill of Rights Act.  

Now, while a Court can speak to a law, only Parliament has the power to change a law. 

So, when the New Zealand Supreme Court made this declaration, Parliament did not make any changes to the above Statutes, and so the national voting age legally remained at 18. 

Now, it can be reasonably assumed from this outcome that most sensible and sane people are acutely aware that minors should in no way, shape, or form, be voting on matters of adult capacity. 

However, it is notable that s 47.3 (a) of the new Incorporated Societies Act 2022 nominates the minimum age of a Society Officer as 16, and s 114 nominates the minimum age of a Society Contact Person as 18. 

This development would seem to affirm that the new Act recognizes the Supreme Court doctrine of "absence of absurdity" when Incorporated Societies are considering what designates an appropriate membership voting age for their organization. 

Consistent with the New Zealand Supreme Court, ITTANZ takes the position that permitting minors to vote on Incorporated Society matters at SGMs and AGMs is indeed absurd, and such a practice could even qualify as none-too-subtle child exploitation for an adult's political or personal gain. 

ITTANZ believes that any organization that would permit such a practice would properly be seen as ethically and morally repugnant, and would rightly bring the organization engaging in such a practice, into reputational and operational disrepute. 

Thankfully, such a practice is reported by the Table Tennis sector as being mercifully rare, and such a practice will hopefully be extinguished for good within Incorporated Societies as a whole, as the Table Tennis sector embraces the new Incorporated Societies Act 2022, and the nominated statutory age categories of formal responsibility that the new Act contains.

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