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

The shadow Assistant Treasurer gives a pretty speech, but it is not cognisant of the entire facts—and he never misses a chance to bash the Enlightenment as he goes through.

Given his natural instinct for deregulation—he is an advocate of deregulation in the university sector; he is an advocate of the GP co-payment—I heard his pitch for the Assistant Treasurer's position. He would be welcome as a Liberal Assistant Treasurer in this government with the deregulation views he holds in so many key areas. We will forward his CV to the Prime Minister's office for consideration. You do have a look in! You will not be ignored with those strong views you have on university deregulation and GP co-payments.

With that strong deregulatory instinct you have for universities and that strong deregulatory instinct you have for the health sector, why is it that you support so strongly the regulation of the charities sector? The most salient point the member made is that the ACNC has not taken away the functions of the ATO to determine deductible gift-for-recipient status. If you felt so strongly that this was an absolutely necessary regulatory body—the prime body for regulating charities and determining whether they are the recipients of taxpayer funding, in the form of deductible gift recipients—it is still the ATO. That is unchanged from the Labor Party set-up.

The previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government had a penchant for red-tape regulation, creating hundreds of new bodies, commissions, positions, audits and reviews. It was their modus operandi. The charity sector and the civil-society sector were no different. This reason for being was the fetish they had for creating new bodies. The ACNC was brought into being to regulate the charity sector.

One of the ironies is that in the first proposal of the ACNC it was said that this was going to be a measure to reduce red tape. At the moment, some of the evidence we are receiving is that it is not reducing red tape. We have seen the most recent lodgement rates. About 85 to 90 per cent of charities have lodged their information so far, but about 10 to 15 per cent have not. If you listen to the shadow Assistant Treasurer, you would think there were 50 registered charities and not-for-profits in Australia today. You might think there were 100 people complaining about it. I would educate the assistant shadow Treasurer here. There are 600,000 not-for-profits in Australia today. He read out a list of 20 or 30. It sounds very impressive when you listen to this debate. There are some big players that do that, but there are 600 not-for-profits in Australia that are now under this regime.

The Labor Party is never cognisant of the difference between large and small. When they make regulation for the business sector, they think business can tolerate it, regardless of whether they are a large business or a small business. It is the coalition—the Liberal and National parties—that understands that small business is the prime mover of the economy. If you make one regulatory change in a macro way, of course big business can handle it, but the small businesses cannot. It is similar in the charity sector. It is not just about the big players and it is not just about the large charities that are well staffed and well-resourced. We want to ensure that civil society is able to function very well, and that means enabling small players as well as large players—people who have the resources to comply with extra red tape and those who do not. The red tape, of course, has to achieve a meaningful purpose. There are 600,000 players out there; 50 in a letter is not representative of 600,000 not-for-profits.

I would also add that Pro Bono conceded that they had a non-scientific basis for the survey which the shadow Assistant Treasurer made so much of. The shadow Assistant Treasurer quoted the survey prolifically. On page 7 of their survey report—and they acknowledge the non-scientific basis of their survey—they say:

The survey doesn't attempt to be statistically representative of the different stakeholders of that Not For Profit sector …

I praise Pro Bono for that because they are being accurate. They are saying that they are not trying to represent or, in any way, be statistically representative of the sector. They did a survey and, out of 600,000, they had 1,200 respondents. Obviously that is not representative. There was no statistical or scientific method. It could have been representative if conducted in a statistical manner, but it was not. They acknowledge that. The shadow Assistant Treasurer should not act as though that survey by Pro Bono is statistically relevant when the organisation itself acknowledges that it is not. It is quite disingenuous for him to do so.

In the bill we have the repeal. I support this agenda, as I have so many times this place, because repealing red tape and regulation is a prime focus of the Abbott coalition government. We have already seen 54,000 pages of legislation removed and $2 billion of compliance removed. Even this morning, I spoke on a bill which removed yet another $500,000 of compliance costs—it was supported by the opposition and I thank them for that—in the building and construction area. It is a prime focus of ours. We can also do this in the charity and not-for-profit sector.

I understand there is a view from some of the big players that it is now easier to go to one body—the shadow Assistant Treasurer referred to one-stop shops—and say, 'Is this compliant or not compliant?' and they say yes. However, that does not apply for the entire sector. There are plenty of people who have a different view, major organisations like—and the shadow Assistant Treasurer should not ignore these bodies, especially considering the current debate—Universities Australia, the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, Catholic Health and the Independent Schools Council of Australia. They all made submissions arguing in favour of the abolition of the ACNC.

I have spoken to not-for-profits in my electorate—often small-scale charities. Small does not mean bad. Small does not mean ineffective. Small does not mean not relevant. There are plenty of niche charities. The point of having charities and not-for-profits is that they act in a fashion that is different to the government. We need our charities so badly in our civil society sector, much more than we need government bureaucrats, because they get more value for the dollar. That is the experience. That is why we have a deductible gift recipient status regime and that is why the government incentivises civil society and charity activity, because it produces greater benefit than armies of bureaucrats—cheaper cost, lower overheads and greater return for the government's work.

I have been a big advocate and fan of many of the Republicans programs in the United States that deliver more government services through acceptable standard charities, because they are so much better at it than having armies of bureaucrats here in Canberra trying to do things on the ground, when you have local community based charities who know their work, know the niche of their work and, indeed, can deliver on it. You could speak to people like Peter Shergold who gave some evidence recently on social bonds that governments are now using to enable more capital to be put into the social services delivery sector. That is new thinking and relevant thinking on better, low-cost ways to deliver government services.

Repealing the ACNC is about reducing red tape, reducing regulation and reducing burden on charities and not-for-profits. It may be that some people find the new arrangements acceptable to them, but, overall, I do not believe this will enhance the situation for the vast majority of not-for-profits and, indeed, for the enabling of civil society—a competitive environment where you can get new entrants into civil society. We do not necessarily want to pick the winners and losers.

Given the ATO is still regulating the DGR status, there are other arguments about how these functions could be handled. I accept the view that we could create a centre of excellence which could address flaws in the old model of charity regulation. I quote in particular an article by Helen Rittelmeyer, published in WAtoday.com.au on 20 March 2014, where she argues for centres of excellence that would, rather than simply abolishing the functions of the ACNC or taking away the ATO's responsibilities and giving them to such a new agency—and there is a point to be made about that in a moment—address the concerns of much of the sector without the need for a new heavy-handed regulatory body with the punitive arrangements that it has.

We know that every charity that is going to be more than six months late with its compliance this year will have a statement of noncompliance published on the register. Registration will be revoked if you have not lodged a return for two consecutive years. That all sounds fine in many ways but, of course, we are talking about some very small-scale not-for-profits. I do think there is a heavy hand to government, and I much prefer the incentive based model of government than the punitive model of government.

The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was in love with punishment. Its regulation was always punitive. It was heavy-handed and its aim was to crush the sector that it was regulating. Its aim was 'find them, punish them, do not work with them, treat them as the enemy'. You could talk to any sector in the country that survived the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era and all of them would report to you that they felt the government had worked against them in the legislative process. They would get a piece of legislation that they were not consulted on. They struggled to get time to see a minister to get some amendments into the legislation. The regulation would be rushed through. It would be heavy-handed. It would be out of sync with what the industry wanted, or what that sector wanted, and they would have to address a very difficult legislative environment. There is no point talking about the failures of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era. Thankfully, the voters of Australia have consigned that to the dustbin of history.

Going forward, this was an election commitment. The coalition will keep their election commitments. We opposed it at the time. We are committed, of course, to delivering on this commitment. I support it because, in speaking with those smaller charities and not-for-profits, there is great concern on how to handle this environment. I think the point is intelligent in that a brand-new body like the ACNC does not have a track record in this space. It is now going to have a series of responsibilities that are not even the core functions of regulating the charity and not-for-profit sectors. They do not do the DGR status, which is still in the hands of the ATO.

Now we have more regulation, not less. We have more bodies that charities have to deal with, not less. The idea of it being a one-stop shop, as the shadow Assistant Treasurer said, is not one-stop when you have to visit the ATO to get your DGR status and then you have to register with the ACNC. That is actually two stops. The shadow Assistant Treasurer should understand that one-stop shops have not been created in the charity and not-for-profit sector by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government's legislation.

If you look at the submissions that Universities Australia and the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes—serious bodies—as well as the Independent Schools Council of Australia provided, you would note that they have some strong views about this regulation abolishing the ACNC, and the benefits that it will provide. There are onerous and duplicative regulatory requirements for charities, and many of them are quite complex. As I said, if you are a big charity, I guess you already have the administrative staff in the front office to deal with this. If you are a smaller charity, the complexity and duplicative requirements are not the language of a one-stop shop. The shadow Assistant Treasurer should understand what a one-stop shop is. It is removing duplicative regulatory requirements, not enabling them. One-stop shops are to reduce complexity, not to increase complexity. The ACNC has increased complexity. It has increased the duplicative regulatory requirements, and that means that it is not a one-stop shop process.

While the shadow Assistant Treasurer is a great supporter of university deregulation, one-stop shops, environmental approvals, GP co-payments—and I have not got to the rest of the chapters of his book, although he was very good to sign a copy for me—I do urge him to rethink the opposition's approach to this. While we have some parts of the sector saying that this is fantastic because we have the capacity to deal with it, we also want to enable civil society, as it has been for many, many years now, to do the best that it can and that means there has to be differences of scale. With 600,000 not-for-profits, it means there will be a variety of size and scale and outcome. Of course, I do not believe that that means we should have fewer not-for-profits or fewer people involved in this space.

This repeal bill, I think, is a good start to ensuring that we have less complexity and less duplicative requirements. If you speak to different parts of the sector you will get different responses about how this should be handled. That does not mean the government should err from the course of their election commitment to reduce red tape and reduce regulatory requirements. There will be no ill effect on any of these not-for-profits by us abolishing the ACNC. There will be no diminishment of their capacity. There will be no financial penalty. There will be no lessening of their work or their scope. In fact, we will be giving the opportunity to do more, and we will be freeing up many smaller players to be able to get on with that work, which we want them doing, which is making our society a better place.

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