Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I first spoke in this 44th Parliament, I raised the issue of how generous the community of the Sunshine Coast is. In particular, organisations such as STEPS, SunnyKids, the Daniel Morcombe Foundation and Wildlife Warriors are just a snapshot of the wonderful organisations who are the glue that holds our society together. The Australian people are a very generous people too. Their generosity is mostly seen and comes to the forefront when there are disasters. When we have had floods and cyclones in Queensland and fires in Victoria there seems to be no limit to the generosity of Australians, both in spirit and in the opening of their wallets.

Tonight, in the comments that I am about to make, I do not wish in any way to be disparaging of our wonderful charitable institutions. But I do want to put out a challenge. We have seen a debate in this House in the last few days about standards of registered organisations. The parliament has been debating whether or not we should have greater transparency and greater accountability. Since I first came here in 1996, MPs have had to meet community expectations of higher standards. There are 26,000-plus charities in Australia that enjoy deductible gift recipient status. In other words, when an Australian gives money to that charity, they get a tax deduction. In 2007 that amounted to some $2 billion. It is wonderful generosity. What I am proposing today, and what I am suggesting to the 26,000-plus charities that do all of that wonderful work, is that they consider voluntarily letting the Australian public know what percentage they actually spend on marketing and administration—because nothing peeves an Australian more than when they have given some money to someone and they do not think it has gone to the cause for which it was intended.

Only last week a very generous man in my electorate—a man who gives a lot of money—said to me, when talking about a very high-profile national fundraising activity, that it was his understanding that 80 per cent of funds raised did not go to the recipients. Now, I do not know whether that is true, and I am obviously not naming the organisation for that very reason. But it highlights that lack of faith and lack of trust. Perhaps sometimes it is mischief making. What I would like to do is strip that away. I am calling on the major charities of Australia to, in the first instance, voluntarily take up the challenge to let the 4.6 million Australians who volunteer and the 37.8 per cent of taxpayers who claim a tax deduction for giving to charitable organisations know in clear, unmistakable clarity what percentage of donations they are spending on administration and marketing. And I think it can be a wonderful tool for us to grow our faith in those organisations and to become an even more generous community. The top 10 charities raised in excess of $800 million, and those figures go back a few years now—back to about 2008. I know there will be those who say that this is additional paperwork, this is additional red tape, and they are against that. But no, it is not. All these organisations have to be externally audited, and all we are asking the auditors to do is to tell us what percentage of this money received is actually going to its intended user. Choice magazine, back in 2008, did a survey of charities and found that 94 per cent of respondents would like to have this information on what proportion of their donation actually reaches the charity and the intended beneficiaries.

I would encourage this government, in the event that charities do not take up this challenge, for those who are deductible gift recipient beneficiaries, that it becomes a condition of receiving DGR status that they make the public aware of this. In doing so, I think we can have greater transparency. We can have greater accountability, we can grow faith in those organisations and, in doing so, we can actually grow the charitable pie. So, the challenge is there. And I say to this parliament: we should encourage all of those worthwhile organisations—the 26,000 of them—to get behind this measure and to ensure that we continue to give to worthwhile Australian charities.