Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This document is the first annual report of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, which came into operation on 3 December 2012. So this report reflects on seven months of operation to 30 June 2013. I place on the record my congratulations and my appreciation of the work of Commissioner Susan Pascoe and her team, who have done an amazing piece of work in a very short period of time. They have reported their work so closely and so carefully in a very accessible annual report. Ms Pascoe writes in her introduction:

Charities are essential to the wellbeing of the community—they enrich Australia's culture, strengthen our democracy, contribute to good public policy and advocate on behalf of individuals. They conduct essential work caring for vulnerable people, protecting the environment, educating children, promoting good health and enabling us to practise our faith.

As we all know, so much of the work that our charities do is supported by an amazing number of volunteers. On International Volunteer Day it is distinctly distressing to hear the news today that the minister has moved to end the function of the ACNC. I really need to put on the record that this first report of the ACNC, which may now be a collector's item, outlines the vast amount of work that has been identified by charities and not-for-profit organisations around Australia since the Industry Commission of 1996 first started looking at the complexity of regulation for charities and the not-for-profit sector. The work that has been done since that time—the massive piece of work that was undertaken by the Productivity Commission—led to the establishment of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission last year when the act was finally passed through the parliament. It is just a gross injustice to all those who work in the not-for-profit sector here in Australia and all the communities who rely on the work of these organisations to have such an announcement made today that the minister is going to move very quickly to abolish the commission and repeal of the legislation by introducing new legislation into the parliament next year.

The minister has instructed the commission to start winding down its operations. The sector is aghast at what has happened, considering that we had invested so much in determining that the shape of this commission reflected the key challenges of: reducing the red tape and duplication; simplifying the state and territory regulations to allow charities and not-for-profit organisations to get on with the work that they need to do; building trust, confidence and transparency in the sector; and ensuring that there was not duplication.

The ACNC was established to be a one-stop shop for not-for-profit regulation, to deal with the vagaries and madness of fundraising legislation, to assist and support the ATO not being the gatekeeper and enabler of charities. Everybody recognised that those two functions needed to be separated. So the notion that we have the minister today, 12 months and two days after the organisation came into being, formally announcing that he is going to move quickly to remove this very important regulatory body from the Australian landscape is a disgrace.

I am distressed by the fact that the report reflects just how much work the ACNC has done. Around 80 per cent of the people surveyed believe that a charity register is very important. The fundamental thing that the ACNC actually did was to introduce the charity register. All of this work—10 years work—is actually going down the drain. It is an outrage.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise, too, to take note of the report of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. This is an issue I have invested a significant amount of time and energy into, making sure that we had a strong ACNC. I, like Senator Stephens—and I acknowledge the amount of work that Senator Stephens did in getting the ACNC off the ground—am extremely disappointed to see the announcement today. I am also extremely disappointed to further see that the government amended their own Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill at one minute to midnight to inject another provision into that piece of legislation, which they are rushing through this place next week, or trying to, and where we get less than a week to review it. They snuck in the provision to delay the start of the Charities Act 2013 in order to start doing in the ACNC. This is the bill that we passed in this place not that long ago to put in place a definition of charities and to put in certain other protections for charities, including advocacy.

Last night we had Mr Mal Brough in the other place talking about the need for transparency and accountability of not-for-profit organisations. Haven't we got a body that deals with that right now? It is called the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. On the same day his minister then introduces legislation to help get rid of the very body that increases transparency and accountability for hundreds of thousands of not-for-profit organisations that operate in this country. This is not about improved accountability and transparency of the not-for-profit organisations; this is about taking it away. When they take away the ACNC what they are doing is taking away the body that ensures that we have better transparency and accountability.

The objects of the organisation are to:

• maintain, protect and enhance public trust and confidence in the sector—

What Mr Brough was doing yesterday and today in the media was smearing the not-for-profit organisations of this country by implying that they use heaps of funds for administration. That is about smearing those organisations, undermining those organisations. The next step will be what they will do about the advocacy of these organisations. Australian not-for-profit organisations should be very concerned that this government is coming for them. By getting rid of the ACNC they are getting rid of the organisation that does ensure and build public confidence and trust in our not-for-profit sector.

The ACNC's other objects are to:

And—get this:

If I wanted to tie up the Australian not-for-profit sector, do you know the way I would do that? I would get the ATO to look after them. That is what the government is going to do. It is going to be getting the Australian Taxation Office to do it, because that is inevitably what is going to happen when you get rid of the ACNC. It will take us back to the dark old days when the ATO was the regulator and the decision-maker. It is a revenue raiser but it is also the decision-maker on your status as a tax-exempt organisation or DGR. That is what this government is about.

It is pretending it is about promoting a vibrant sector. It is not; it is about putting it under more red tape. The ACNC has a statutory duty to report to parliament about cutting red tape. That is what the ACNC is supposed to be doing. Why would the government then move to get rid of it? Yes, there are teething problems, as there always are in getting an organisation started. But, as Senator Stephens said, they have now got the register started and thousands of organisations are now registered. They are getting in their information statements and they are starting to run a process that is going to be effective and working into the long term. This government is not about having a vibrant sector. It is about trying to tie them up, it is about smearing them and getting rid of thorns in their side. Nobody should be fooled about where this government is coming from.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was going to seek to continue my remarks, as I have in the past on this document, but I feel as though I should speak on it. I think everyone should be properly grateful that I ensured that it stayed on the Notice Paper so that we could debate it tonight. One would get the view that prior to the existence of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, and it has been less than a year, the not-for-profits sector did not exist. I am surprised that they managed to stagger through without the ACNC to assist them.

Once again, the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquired into the establishment of the ACNC and at that time the then opposition—now government—senators expressed great concern about what was being done here in the terms of empire building. It had been put to me some time previously by the then minister Mr Shorten that the plan was to assist not-for-profits to become more efficient by combining their back-office activities. It was an absolutely great idea. Everyone would be in favour of ways of allowing not-for-profits and charities to perform more efficiently. To suggest that the existence of the ACNC actually does that in any way I cannot imagine because it certainly does not apply.

The annual report of the ACNC is an excellent report for an organisation that has been set up to do what it had been set up to do by the then Labor government. But that does not change the fact that it was not needed to do that job and the money that was spent to establish it. One other thing that the then opposition senators, such as myself, complained about during the inquiry was that the acting CEO had been appointed long before the inquiry had been completed and long before the commission was actually established by law. There were advertisements going out for staff—for dozens of staff—for this commission before it was established by this parliament. So once again we have the former government putting the cart before the horse and spending money unnecessarily to build empires where empires are not needed.

The current minister, Mr Kevin Andrews, plans that there will a centre of excellence to look at research and to suggest other ways to improve the activities and the governance of the charities and not-for-profit sector. They are and have been a very, very strong and integral part of the framework of the centre-right parties for a long time. The history of the establishment of charities would be littered with the activities of the British, in that case, Conservative Party who established the values and the framework that still underpin some of the activities in this area. But it did not need a monolith known as the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission costing the amount of money that it has to achieve a good and functional charities and not-for-profit sector.

The opposition might contemplate the idea that there is going to be legislation put through which will delay the establishment of the organisation so that it can be wound back. Once again, we had legislation after piece of legislation going through this place when the then Labor government came up with a great idea and implemented it, but forgot to put the framework in place to achieve it through the legislative framework. If anyone needed lessons in governance I think it was the former Labor government.

The not-for-profit sector in Australia can be reassured that the current government is very much in favour of a vibrant well-governed sector, and an advocacy sector that functions alongside that is absolutely critical to its good performance.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will just remind senators that any document that is not called upon will be discharged from the Notice Paper but those we are preserving obviously will be preserved. Also, for senators, we do not need to move any motions. All the motions have been moved on a previous occasion so this is simply speaking to the document and seeking leave if you wish to return the document to the paper.