A wish of the late Right Hon. Peter Fraser, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, brought about the formation of this Council. Mr Fraser invited the churches to get together to devise a plan for providing chaplains to the forces. The consequent meeting, called by the National Council of Churches, was held at Wellington on 23 July 1941. After fulfilling the Prime Minister's request, the meeting proceeded to consider a suggestion from the National Council of Churches, namely, “that an Inter-church Council on Public Affairs should be instituted in Wellington for consultation and common action”. The outcome was the establishment of the Inter-church Council on Public Affairs, sponsored by representatives of the following churches: Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Churches of Christ, Congregational, Salvation Army, and Society of Friends. At a later date the Lutheran Churches of New Zealand were added.
The Council serves as a body through which the churches can consult together for the purpose of initiating common action in matters of social and moral importance. The Council is composed of three representatives from each of the member churches, and its officers consist of a chairman, vice-chairman, and secretary-treasurer, to be elected annually, though it is now the custom to allow each chairman two years of office and for the vice-chairman to succeed the chairman. The expenses of the Council are borne by contributions of the constituent churches. The officers themselves constitute a committee to decide when meetings shall be held, and public action is taken only when there is unanimity on the part of the constituent churches. To date there have been remarkably few matters brought forward for consideration on which the Council was precluded from action.
Chairmen: Rev. J. Thomson Macky (1941–46); Right Rev. Herbert Holland (1946); Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes (1947–48); Rev. W. A. Burley (1949–50); Right Rev. E. J. Rich (1951); Rev. G. H. Goodman (1954–55); Rev. J. S. Somerville (1956–57); Right Rev. E. J. Rich (1958); Col. A. Bramwell Cook (1959–60); Mr H. W. Milner (1961– ). Vice–Chairman for 1961: Rev. E. R. Vickery. Secretaries: Rev. L. A. North (1941–43); Rev. Ashleigh K. Petch (1943–47); Mr C. Gibson Young (1947–61); Mr H. W. Shove (1961– ).
As the Council was founded during wartime, it was natural that its early activities were related to war conditions. In 1942, during the National Patriotic Fund Board's appeal for funds, the Council strongly supported the principle of direct giving. Entertainments were arranged for American troops. The welfare of special groups also received attention – for example, WAAFs in Air Force camps, children of working mothers, conscientious objectors, and the Jewish people overseas. The Council took an interest in problems connected with juvenile delinquency and moral laxity. It arranged visitations to prisoners of war. Further, the Council entered a plea for the Government to bring sentences of solitary confinement in defaulters' detention camps into harmony with prison regulations, and urged that an Appellate Tribunal for Conscientious Objectors be constituted. Ways for alleviating the world food crisis, and for implementing the Food for Britain campaign were also considered. The Council prepared a statement on the physical and recreational activities of youth and, at the same time, initiated a campaign for the building – in Wellington Hospital grounds – of a chapel intended to become a nurses' war memorial.
Subsequently the Council became interested in immigrant welfare and has undertaken such tasks as arranging for chaplains to sail in immigrant ships, forming a joint committee of organisations responsible for refugees, absorbing refugees from China into the community, and obtaining permits for wives to join their Chinese husbands already in New Zealand. The Council also took a leading part in the reorganisation of prisoners' aid work. More recently its chairman was appointed to the Royal Commission on Licensing, and its two nominations for the Conscientious Objection Committee on Compulsory Military Training were also accepted.
In recent years prison reform, television, road safety, film censorship, and care of the aged have become the Council's major concerns.
by Cecil Gibson Young (1887–1964), late Dominion Secretary, Inter-church Council on Public Affairs.