Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

That is very generous, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am so grateful for the opportunity for another five minutes to finish my remarks. I was making the point that this is a very important bill. These are very important changes. The Labor Party think it is tremendously amusing to put every volunteer organisation—whether they are local parishes across Australia, whether they are non-government or government schools—at risk of being unable to continue. They think it is tremendously funny.

The philosophies behind the Labor Party's reforms are that they always assume that someone is doing the wrong thing. They never assume that volunteers could be doing the right thing. The Labor Party's ideological position is that we must regulate it. If it is not regulated we must get government involved. The bureaucracy always advises them: 'There are one or two examples of mistakes that have been made, so let's regulate the whole sector. Let's cover the field.' And Labor always follows. But there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers out there in the community, across Australia, not just in schools but in parishes and local communities, who will now be subject to draconian regulation, draconian legislation that interferes in every aspect of their trust or their charity. This is a big mistake the government is making.

Why aren't we trying to encourage volunteering? Rather than giving out certificates, which we are pleased to do, and rather than giving out more medals, which we are pleased to do, the Labor Party pays lip-service to volunteers. But when it comes to the on-the-ground activities of volunteers they say, 'Let's regulate them; let's bring in the heavy hand of government,' as if they are not already following the rules and as if they are not already following regulations at the state level. The government said, 'We will regulate and the states will give away their rights,' but they have not. So the government has found itself in this terrible bind where it is now introducing a whole new level of regulation for charities and not-for-profits, and it is in the embarrassing situation yet again of coming into this House and amending its own original legislation on the very night when it is being passed by the House of Representatives.

As the shadow minister for education I will stand up on behalf of the coalition for all the schools across Australia, both government and non-government schools, that have trusts, charities and foundations and use all of those resources to improve infrastructure, to pay scholarships, to hire extra teachers, to support disabled children. They are already overcome and overburdened with regulation and they have lobbied me and counselled me about how they would like to see this legislation not proceeded with.

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