Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too wish to speak on the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill 2012 and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (Consequential and Transitional) Bill 2012. Like the other speakers in the coalition I am quite concerned about the potential impacts of this bill, if it goes through as currently written.

In Australia we depend on the not-for-profit sector, the voluntary sector, particularly in rural and regional Australia, where the sector does much of the heavy lifting when it comes to such things as disaster support and looking after our education, sports related and faith related issues. In my electorate of Murray, I have to say, we have an enormous dependency on the not-for-profit sector for the delivery of aged care. We have towns of 400 people, quite typically, with over 100 voluntary organisations. Many of those would be classified as not-for-profit organisations and they will be caught up in this particular legislation.

This is also very lazy legislation. It is a lazy bill in that much of the intended action will appear in the regulations. We do not have the details. We are told to wait and see. But that is always a danger, particularly with this government. It is essential that we know exactly all of the details of the regulations. Much of what is to be in the regulations should of course be in the legislation itself.

The first bill I referred to establishes the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, a brand-new commission for Australia. I would have thought that our country was already groaning under the new commissions that have been established to overdo, over-regulate and overscrutinise so much of our way of life. We are told we need this new commission because it will reduce red tape. It implies, of course, that the sector is untrustworthy and that the people involved are pathetic amateurs who will need a lot of heavy and careful watching. We are concerned that this business tends to be disguised by saying that this commission will reduce red tape.

We also are told—and this is quite extraordinary—that one of the reasons for this new commission is that it will provide the public with information on the not-for-profit sector commensurate to the level of support provided to the sector by the public. I have never heard any of my not-for-profit organisations—whether it is Meals on Wheels, VicRelief FoodBank, Warramunda Village, which runs huge aged care facilities, the Zaidee's Rainbow Foundation, which was set up by the parents of a young girl who died for the purpose of promoting organ donation, the St Vincent de Paul Society or the Anti-Cancer Council—say that they really would like a national commission to publicise what they do, rather than doing it themselves without restrictions. It is quite extraordinary that that is one of the key reasons we are told we need this new commission.

The problem is that a lot of what the commission intends to do in terms of information gathering and reporting is already required by the states and territories. Our independent schools in particular are in despair as they look at the potential impact of these bills. They are already required to report to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations much of the information they will have to report to the ACNC. They also have to report to the state education authorities the sort of information they are told they will have to supply to the ACNC. A lot of our independent schools are small. I have a number of small Christian schools in my electorate of Murray. They do not have big secretariats in a capital city, but they are being told, 'Don't worry—this is about cutting red tape. But, by the way, the states and some other departments have not yet agreed to relinquish their interest in the data they are collecting, so just hold your breath and wait and see what happens.' I do not think that is good enough.

I think Australia's civil society is one of its strengths. Our civil society depends on volunteering. It depends on board members who give of their precious family time or take time from their own businesses to commit to a public good. Those board members are already burdened with extraordinary levels of compliance requirements in regard to information and their own education. They have been required to cover their backs in regard to their own legal liabilities and the liabilities of their various board activities.

This new commission will have sanctions and penalties associated with it in case someone steps off the straight and narrow path. Those penalties will include imprisonment or very substantial fines. I can imagine someone who is pressed for time, who has a family to look after and perhaps has their own sporting and church interests saying, 'Well, of course I would love to be a board member of my local not-for-profit,' but they then look at the extra work they will have, with the demands from the new commission for more information than they currently have to provide to other agencies. I think it is an absurdity.

You have to wonder what it is all about, because the system is not broken. As it is, a lot of people are already very concerned about extra red tape, so what is this all about? We know that this government has a great deal of difficulty on so many fronts. It has incredible indebtedness that is getting worse every day, most of its policy initiatives have failed and new policy initiatives like the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the new dental scheme are not funded. Why are we now being asked to introduce this new commission, which will cost a lot to run? What is it all about? I think the member for Mackellar and other speakers opposing this bill might have nailed it. They have all come to the conclusion that probably what this is about is having another way to tax these not-for-profit organisations. What a tragedy that is. What movement by stealth this represents. While a lot of these agencies are not-for-profit, it is true that some collect a lot of revenue in order to keep their giving going.

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