16.6.14 Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (10:42): You really get the sense today that the Labor Party is going through the motions in this debate. The member for Fraser has left the chamber. He is not even interested enough in what is being said here today on his own motion. I suppose he is working on a revised edition of his book, Battlers and billionaires. He is the doyen of university deregulation and Medicare co-payments. A copy of his book is now sitting on my shelf. Right next to Adam Smith, John Locke, Milton Friedman and von Mises is Dr Andrew Leigh, the doyen of Medicare co-payments, on the free marketeers shelf.
He is not interested enough in this motion, and I think it is understandable why. I understand why the member for Fraser wants to change the conversation and what people are talking about in relation to him, because his book certainly has got enough attention and it would be wrong of me not to mention it again. What an excellent work it is. We have not reached the chapter on charities yet. I am looking forward to reading what he says on charities in his book, because I am sure it is not what he said today.
Of course, the problem with what the Labor Party is saying here today is that the reality on the ground and the evidence that has been before the government for some time—when we were in opposition and now in government—is that this regulatory body is another example of overregulation that is impacting upon the sector. When you get charities like Anglicare and UnitingCare Australia—and UnitingCare Australia in particular gave a very insightful piece of evidence to the Senate committee—saying that they had problems with this regulator and that it was challenging their ability and the ability of many of their member charities to function, I think you have a serious problem. I want to quote from the UnitingCare report:
Based on the Commissioner's 45 minute estimate it will take the 57,500 organisations registered with the ACNC a total of 43,125 hours to complete the AIS. That is the equivalent of a year's work for nearly 25 full-time employees to meet this obligation.
That is the impact, according to UnitingCare. They go further and say:
Our analysis of the 2013 AIS is that the majority of the information it requests has already been provided to government—
that is the point made by the member for Herbert; once again there is more duplication from government—
by the majority of organisations registered with the ACNC.
The cost … of this duplication of effort is significant and critically many organisations can only meet the requirement by taking resources away from frontline service delivery.
A significant opportunity for the ACNC to reduce red tape from the beginning of its operations has been missed and the cost of doing so has fallen to the sector.
That was UnitingCare Australia.
Mr Ewen Jones: What would they know!
Mr HAWKE: 'What would they know!' as the member for Herbert points out. This is our concern with this body. Once again in the last parliament, the Labor Party, in its alliance with the Greens and the Independents at the time, rushed in pieces of legislation that were poorly thought out, without proper consultation with the sector, and in this case we are talking about the best of our organisations in society: charities and institutions that help the most vulnerable. What is the Labor Party's plan for this vital sector and these institutions that do so much for so little? They do far much more than government does, because they deliver services so efficiently. They take money from people and turn it into great outcomes for people in need. The Labor Party's solution was to put in a new regulatory body, to make the sector fill out more paperwork and to make them employ people to fill out paperwork for the federal government in Canberra—information that government already has at state and territory level. There is already plenty of regulation of charities and not-for-profit organisations, and there are plenty of requirements and burdens.
The member for Fraser got up in this House and said, 'Actually, this has been a recommendation of everybody. There has been a major report and everything else for years and years.' The idea was to bring in a regulatory body that would reduce regulation and reduce duplication, but the Labor Party just does not get it. Every time they try and do something they add regulation, they add a burden and they add duplication. Cost and time is taken out of a vital sector—
Mr Frydenberg interjecting—
Mr HAWKE: The parliamentary secretary reminds me that 21,000 new regulations were brought in under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. We are talking about a vital sector: the charitable sector. This is a good approach from the new government to get rid of this burden on the most vital of charities and organisations doing the most and giving their best. I recommend the legislation that the government is presenting through the red tape repeal day to ensure that the regulatory burden on our charities and the not-for-profit sector is reduced so that they can get on with the vital work that they do.