Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You really get the sense today that the Labor Party is going through the motions in this debate. The member for Fraser has left the chamber. He is not even interested enough in what is being said here today on his own motion. I suppose he is working on a revised edition of his book, Battlers and billionaires. He is the doyen of university deregulation and Medicare co-payments. A copy of his book is now sitting on my shelf. Right next to Adam Smith, John Locke, Milton Friedman and von Mises is Dr Andrew Leigh, the doyen of Medicare co-payments, on the free marketeers shelf.

He is not interested enough in this motion, and I think it is understandable why. I understand why the member for Fraser wants to change the conversation and what people are talking about in relation to him, because his book certainly has got enough attention and it would be wrong of me not to mention it again. What an excellent work it is. We have not reached the chapter on charities yet. I am looking forward to reading what he says on charities in his book, because I am sure it is not what he said today.

Of course, the problem with what the Labor Party is saying here today is that the reality on the ground and the evidence that has been before the government for some time—when we were in opposition and now in government—is that this regulatory body is another example of overregulation that is impacting upon the sector. When you get charities like Anglicare and UnitingCare Australia—and UnitingCare Australia in particular gave a very insightful piece of evidence to the Senate committee—saying that they had problems with this regulator and that it was challenging their ability and the ability of many of their member charities to function, I think you have a serious problem. I want to quote from the UnitingCare report:

Based on the Commissioner's 45 minute estimate it will take the 57,500 organisations registered with the ACNC a total of 43,125 hours to complete the AIS. That is the equivalent of a year's work for nearly 25 full-time employees to meet this obligation.

That is the impact, according to UnitingCare. They go further and say:

Our analysis of the 2013 AIS is that the majority of the information it requests has already been provided to government—

that is the point made by the member for Herbert; once again there is more duplication from government—

by the majority of organisations registered with the ACNC.

The cost … of this duplication of effort is significant and critically many organisations can only meet the requirement by taking resources away from frontline service delivery.

A significant opportunity for the ACNC to reduce red tape from the beginning of its operations has been missed and the cost of doing so has fallen to the sector.

That was UnitingCare Australia.

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