Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to raise the somewhat vexing issue of tax deductibility for expenses incurred by our volunteers, especially in the wake of the devastating fires in Victoria. Volunteer fire services, like the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and of course the Country Fire Authority, the CFA, in Victoria—those great volunteers who have worked so hard, so tirelessly, and sacrificed so much—are not able to claim a tax deduction for any equipment they buy in support of the work they do or indeed for any of the petrol their vehicles use in getting to where they volunteer to help make our community safer.

At present our volunteers cannot claim expenses as a deduction on their tax, as our tax system only allows deductions against income earned. You are allowed to deduct an amount that you incurred whilst earning your income. Volunteering, by its very nature, does not earn an income, and generally any stipend—if the word can be used—or other amount earned is tax free.

The value of volunteer groups across the nation is outstanding. No-one in this place would discount what volunteers do. In fact, there are more volunteers per head on the Gold Coast, where my seat of Fadden and my neighbouring seats of Moncrieff and McPherson are, than in any other commensurate place in the nation. We know volunteering; we love volunteering. I especially thank Leticia Vargas of Volunteering Queensland for all of her hard work. But this parliament needs to have a serious debate about making legitimate expenses incurred by volunteers tax deductible against their primary source of income.

I will give the parliament one great example of a group of volunteers—people who come together to assist; communities that come together with community spirit to make a difference. In one of my communities, Coombabah, a number of ladies got together to say, ‘How can we help the people ravaged by bushfires down in Victoria?’ These are people who are not very wealthy but they wanted to do something. They approached the centre manager at Coombabah Plaza, a man called John Corby, who very generously allowed them to put on a fundraiser at Coombabah Plaza and agreed to have the centre open on Saturday, when the shops are normally closed, to allow the fundraiser to occur. So a group of fabulous local residents—Kay Hobson, Francis Vause, Vicki Tuck, Coral and Neil Honey and Jocelyn Reynolds—got together and said: ‘Let’s have a fundraiser—a sausage sizzle and a raffle—with the proceeds to go to the bushfire and wildlife appeal.’ They engaged the majority of local businesses at the Coombabah Plaza, and those businesses generally gave of their time, their expertise, their goods and their manpower. Those businesses at Coombabah Plaza—Liquorland, the Animal Welfare League, Northern Performance Realty, Vines Cafe Bistro, Coombabah Pharmacy, Lyndal’s Hairdresser, Hillsea Real Estate, Access One Home Loan Centre, Coombabah Newsagency, Coombabah Bakery and Coffee Shop, Anne Dines Hair Salon, Your Interior Designer, Coombabah Meat Man, Avanti Bridal and Formal and Spar Express—all contributed. This wonderful group of volunteers raised $1,847.80 through donating their time and resources.

The plaza came alive as people and the community got together for a worthwhile cause. People volunteered their time, their talents and their efforts. The community came together, and it was fabulous to see. Whilst so many businesses gave of their time in such a great volunteering spirit, I especially mention the local bakery that gave so much bread that they did not have enough for their regular customers—that is how much they gave to this appeal. A local butcher gave as many snags as they were asked to give, without question. That typifies the great heart of the volunteers in Fadden and especially in Coombabah. I think I speak for all parliamentarians in saying that it typifies the great spirit of volunteers within their communities.

That is why there is merit in a debate on tax deductibility for expenses incurred by volunteers. You may be surprised to know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there is no legal definition of a volunteer for tax purposes, yet Volunteering Australia defines formal volunteering as:

… an activity which takes place through not for profit organisations or projects and is undertaken:

• to be of benefit to the community and the volunteer;
• of the volunteer's own free will and without coercion;
• for no financial payment; and
• in designated volunteer positions only.

There are no provisions for this activity to claim expenses. The ATO is explicit in its advice in this respect:

Voluntary work is usually unpaid and, if an individual receives a payment in their capacity as a volunteer, it is generally not assessable income. Most expenses incurred in undertaking voluntary work are—

therefore—

not tax deductible.

If you look across what the rest of the world is doing, you get an insight into what is possible. In the US, volunteers can receive tax deductions from the federal government on many costs associated with volunteering, such as mileage and other travel expenses, paper, copying, convention attendance fees, parking, and uniforms if the volunteer purchases his or her own uniform. These deductions apply only if you are not reimbursed for these expenses by the organisation you are assisting and they are itemised on the tax form that you put in. This is something this country should have a debate on. Volunteers are the backbone of our great nation. If we take away volunteers and the not-for-profit organisations that volunteers work in and support, I think it is not stretching the imagination to say that our nation would collapse.

Government is not intended, nor is it able, to provide all the services. Indeed, government should not. I believe in small government—in government providing a hand up, not a handout. I believe in communities and individuals working within their communities. I believe that communities are able to solve problems far better than government, notwithstanding a government’s ability to be involved in major capacities. The heart and soul of our lives and what makes them better is the communities and the individuals we interact with on a daily basis—not government. There is room to examine this issue of volunteering and tax deductibility, and I commend this course to the House.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about volunteerism, and I want to commend the government in one respect and, in another respect, seek for it to do some things. I want to commend the government for the Volunteer Grants Program 2008, wherein funding totalling over $21 million was announced and grants of up to $5,000 were made available for each organisation to purchase small equipment items and to assist volunteers by, for example, contributing to reimbursing fuel costs incurred by volunteers in carrying out their voluntary work. In my area, more than 20 organisations received the benefit, and that was right across Australia in every electorate. I know that community groups were very appreciative of that.

I also want to commend the government in relation to its announcements on local community infrastructure, which allocated some $500 million for community infrastructure—for sporting grounds, swimming pools, community centres and town halls. In relation to that, each local government area is allowed one application, and projects must need a Commonwealth contribution of at least $2 million. These are large projects. My concern is that there are a lot of groups falling between the cracks, and I believe government should be attempting to assist them. Small donations—$5,000 for some organisations—are excellent, but I will come to the other organisations.

I agree with the member who spoke earlier. Volunteers play an enormous role in our community. Recently there was an Australian Bureau of Statistics study on social trends. It reported on 9 July 2007, and it is worth quoting a few things from it. It states that, in 2006, 5.2 million people—34 per cent of the Australian population aged 18 years and over—participated in voluntary work. They contributed 713 million hours to the community, doing many different activities in organisations and groups with a diverse range of interests. Overall, 32 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women were volunteers. What is interesting is that, of those 713 million hours, 407 million hours were spent in capital cities and the balance of 306 million was spent in all other parts of the states. That shows that people in regional and rural Australia are obviously putting in hours at a higher rate.

I know that government cannot involve itself in every activity of our lives but, when you have volunteers putting in this level of effort, in my humble opinion it is in the interests of the community to have a partnership approach from government and a level of seeding for all levels of volunteers. For instance, in my area I am Vice-President of Revesby Workers Club. It is a large, licensed club with 34,000 members. We have 36 sporting bodies. Little Athletics has 300 kids participating every Friday night at the University of Western Sydney oval in Milperra. They have had to find the money for lights and then for repairing those lights. The universities are cash-strapped at the moment as a result of the issue of student unionism and sporting facilities. They are not the only ones.

We have taken on board a local rugby league club. We have not had rugby league at the workers club for many years. We did in the sixties, and they were expelled as a result of certain incidents, which I will not go into. We have taken a partnership approach with them. We encouraged them, they came to us, they have money of their own and we have, in effect, agreed to lend them $60,000 at reasonable bank rates and to give them $30,000 so that they can extend their clubhouse. We give the other clubs within the workers club some $200,000 per year in seed funding. That includes the ladies group, disability groups—we have a whole range of groups. That partnership helps them. Without the money they could not survive, but they put in a lot themselves. We have a happier community, a more tightly-knit community, a community that comes together.

It seems to me that what government needs to do, as I said, is to expand the availability of money a little bit. One cricket club in my area, of which I am the patron—I will not name them but they are a first-grade club in the Bankstown area, so it is not hard to work out what they are called—have been renovating and building grandstands. Our club, Bankstown Sports, put in large amounts of money to assist them in the first stage. They want to go to the next stage. They have raised a million dollars. They are looking for half a million dollars so that they can further advance the local facilities on the ground, which will be available to the community, and something beyond that. At the moment there is no program that they can look to for that level of funding, because it is too small for one end of the scale and too large for the other. They have been a tremendous club within our community. We have had Cricket Masala there, we have had shield cricket matches—a whole range of matches—because it is a high-quality ground with high-quality volunteers. The other day I was told that one of the fellows from the athletics club spends eight hours before athletics commences on Friday night at six—virtually the whole day—preparing the ground.

So my grievance is this: although these are difficult economic times, we need to nurture the spirit of volunteering that is in our nation, because in dark times it is the spirit that will prevail. If government can nurture that spirit then as a community we will see our way through the dark times. That is why I believe what the government is doing at the top and bottom end of the spectrum is something that should be commended. It is not partisan; it goes to every council and every electorate in the country and it is on merit. That is the way it should be. You should not have a situation where members of the opposition are excluded from accessing funds for their local community because they are in opposition. That is not the right way to do it. They should compete on merit.

This study on voluntary work in Australia includes, I think, good information to justify what I am suggesting. For instance, on page 4 it says:

The pattern of volunteering varied with life stage. People aged 35-44 years were in the age group most likely to volunteer (43%).

So what you see there is bonding within the families as a result of volunteering. The study goes on to say:

The four most common types of organisation for which people volunteered, namely sport and physical recreation, education and training, community/welfare and religious groups, accounted for three-quarters (74%) of volunteering involvements. The remaining quarter includes a very wide range of advocacy, emergency service, environmental, animal welfare, self-development and other recreational and special interest groups.

I know that we cannot provide for everyone, but in my opinion this is money well spent. As the study says on page 10:

In the course of doing voluntary work, many volunteers incur expenses, such as for telephone calls, travel, and uniforms, or unspecified costs which might include wear and tear on own equipment or income foregone for duration of service. In 2006, 58% of volunteers incurred expenses.

And they are not reimbursed for those expenses.

I suggest that we need to look at this so that we can provide seed funding at every level of the volunteer community. It is in the national interest to do so.