Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As you should keep good and fine order in this House, Mr Deputy Speaker. The bill we are debating is the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (Repeal) (No. 1) Bill 2014. Predominantly the bill seeks to repeal an act that was introduced by the previous Rudd-Gillard government. During the course of my contribution I will highlight reasons and, at every point, my name will appear in the Hansard opposing the introduction of this bill.

The reason I am so passionate about the repealing of this act is that, before coming to politics, I had quite a successful transport operation. The genesis of my transport business was that I started with one vehicle. My wife and I had one vehicle that ran between Rockhampton and Emerald, and I grew the business to a couple more trucks operating around Queensland. I was encouraged to apply for a sort of chamber of commerce regional award for business excellence, or whatever the award was. I nominated and I won the chamber of commerce award. I felt most humbled by the fact that I had been recognised by my peers in the community.

A dark hand appeared on my shoulder from nowhere and a voice said, 'You have made many millions of dollars from this community. What have you given back?' The hand was no other than that of the chairman of the local Lifeline Central Queensland branch. He said, 'It is now your time to give back to the community. As the chair, I am offering you a board position to get involved with Lifeline Queensland.' I said that I would be more than happy to make a contribution, but I am Catholic; I am not of the faith of Lifeline. He said, 'I'm not reaching out to you because I want your religious persuasion. I'm reaching out to you because I want your business excellence. I want you to come and influence our business.'

Most charities rely on the philanthropy of the community. They rely on good business management to run their businesses efficiently, and at the other end of the spectrum they rely on the outstanding contributions from trained counsellors and from those who are far more generous of their time than I ever believed I could ever be for the Lifeline family. There are a number of business elements to the Lifeline business.

I will make a long story short as I do not want to bore the House because I am aware that, at this time of the year, we are all in a festive mood. There are Christmas parties on, hosted by both sides of the House, celebrating the great work that is done by staff in this place.

The chairman said to me, 'You need to make a contribution to pay back the community which you have made money from,' and which I continue to do. Proudly, I can say that, during my three years as a Lifeline executive for Central Queensland, I increased their business turnover by 318 per cent. Every cent of that money ended up back in that community. I am open about it; I am not your counsellor. I may have been gifted with a good business mind, but I am not the bloke you need to come to with a sad story because you will find little sympathy. There are others more confident in that area. I expanded my business interests from Central Queensland further south into the state. I opened and established another seven transport depots, employed probably another 50 men and bought a fleet of trucks.

The state board of Lifeline reached out and said, 'We could use your skills.' I accepted a position as a state board director of Lifeline and I systematically set about restructuring the entire governance procedures for the state of Queensland. Today, I am led to believe that those governance procedures still lead them to profitable outcomes each year—a mighty outcome.

It is because of that passion and because I gave those many hours freely, that I stand here and try to bring some type of efficiency back to the not-for-profit sector, because at every step of this debate I have opposed this. Listen to me closely. This bill was brought to this House under the principle that it was to reduce red tape. Guess how the Rudd-Gillard government was going to reduce red tape and reduce bureaucracy?

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