Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Brown, I cannot give you an example from the information I have in front of me; what I can say is that there have been concerns raised by you and by other people since the establishment of the prescribed private funds that perhaps there has been suggestion of manipulation—that this has not been wholly philanthropic and that perhaps people have been using it for tax advantages. That is why the government has been involved in a very serious and comprehensive process of consultation around changes to improve the transparency of the PPFs, which will now become private ancillary funds. Under the new regime, which will be in place very soon, I am confident that you will have greater confidence around these processes in the future. It is difficult for us to go back for a retrospective analysis of the information that we have available for 2007. It is incumbent upon those organisations to improve their transparency and their public accountability for these funds, and that is a part of the measures that we are trying to put in place.