Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a somewhat unclean debate today, given that both sides of this chamber are so strongly in support of the not-for-profit sector and many of us receive support from the not-for-profit sector ourselves. Given the almost 'political heritage' of having an MPI at the end of the week where the opposition screams that the government is bringing the world to an end, it is difficult to tease out exactly what the concern is. Obviously, to be traducing Gary Johns is disappointing. In a simplistic sense, I don't have a dog in this fight if Labor wants to tear apart a former Labor minister; but to tear down someone once he has taken up the position as ACNC Commissioner is I think one of the more disappointing positions these Labor MPs have taken. Sure, we can all dig through the comments someone has previously made; but, honestly, in a world of political poodles it is time someone spoke straight and said what they think. I admire Gary Johns for that, though I might not always agree with him; but he is now doing a very important job and all evidence points to him doing it with assiduous attention to detail. Indeed, that is precisely what he is commissioned to do. His job is to identify not-for-profits that have drifted away from their commission. It is an incredibly tiny number. There are 54,000 charities and only a dozen or two have drifted so far that, for reasons of misconduct or mismanagement, they have had to lose their status.

Let no-one on either side forget that this gift of deductibility is from the Australian people, not from government. The gift of being able to raise money and not pay tax allows these entities to devote and invest more in what they're commissioned to do. Everyone supports that. All the people listening around Australia just want not-for-profits to get on with doing what their bread and butter business is. There is no disagreement there.

Where there is this frisson of disagreement coming from the other side is the suggestion that stopping foreign money coming in and being involved in party politics is actually tying the hand of not-for-profits or stifling them. The government can't agree with that at all. I thought the contribution from the Labor MP who spoke just before me was a reasonably balanced assessment of that. She conceded that some of these third party entities are actually fighting the Labor Party. I know traditionally we have seen the very large developed ones fighting the right of centre, but she conceded that we do need a higher level of scrutiny for these entities. Let's go through it step by step. They take the gift of tax deductibility from the Australian government, and they take that money and engage not in their core business but in party-political activity. First of all, that activates the electoral laws on domestic donations, which rightly it should. But if it's coming from overseas—I seem to recall it was the Labor Party that was most vocal about stopping this foreign money from 'pouring in'. Labor were very concerned about fat cats coming in and influencing local elections. So here we have a simple manifestation of stopping it but, all of a sudden, Labor have just seen a spark of political opportunism where they can, firstly, take down Gary Johns and then, secondly, scare all 54,000 charities that can't bear to say a word in case they get shut down!

This is such a distortion of the truth. Let's go right back to the simple facts. Nothing stops not-for-profits from advocating for their stated causes, the things for which they were commissioned to do. The bill allows them to continue to take foreign donations even, so long as they are not involved in political activity. There is no better party-political example than GetUp!. I love the word 'temerity'. They had the temerity to turn up to the Queensland election and fight against Adani. Did they turn up to fight against the Labor government that approved Adani? No, they didn't. They turned up in Queensland and they held out a piece of paper that said, 'Malcolm Turnbull, through the NAIF, is considering funding a rail line that runs to Adani, so please vote for the Labor Party'—please vote for the Labor Party, which approved Adani, because we hate so much a Prime Minister who was contemplating giving a loan, paid back with interest, to build rail infrastructure for this great nation! It would have been a concessional loan with interest. The interest rate on a concessional loan is slightly lower than the market interest rate, so it is every dollar, and interest, paid back to the Australian people for the first time ever to build rail infrastructure in this country using private money. And they fought to the death to stop it. GetUp! was at every polling booth I could see, telling everyone, 'Please, hate Malcolm Turnbull and vote for the party that approved Adani.' It is this completely distorted thinking, this political involvement with overseas funding, that will stop this legislation. That it is why we support it.

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