Charity begins in parliament

Finance Minister Matthias Cormann has acted quickly to freeze plans to unwind consumer protections contained in the previous government’s Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) law. Taxpayers Australia has been campaigning against the changes for some time and welcomes the decision to press the pause button whilst further consultation takes place.

While the changes to the financial planning rules have rightly generated a lot of attention, there is one other serious assault on consumer protections that is still set to go ahead when the government puts its Repeal Day red tape cutting measures before Parliament tomorrow, 26 March.

In 2012, the Labor government introduced the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission (ACNC) to oversee regulation of the Australian charities sector.

Introduced with a broad welcome from most parts of the not-for-profit community, the ACNC remit included ensuring a high level of governance within charities, ensuring that donors to charity are not ripped off.  In its first year of operation, the ACNC received more than 200 complaints, with more than a third of them alleging fraud, fund raising scams or misuse of charitable funds by individuals.

Now, the government is proposing to abolish the ACNC under the guise of reducing red tape.

Interestingly, many major charities (the ones on whom the supposed red tape burden presumably falls) have strenuously objected to the abolition of the ACNC, including the RSPCA, Wesley Family Victoria and Lifeline.  They know that it’s essential for donors to have complete confidence that the charities they are donating to are clean, well governed and operated on a financially sound basis.  The ACNC provides that assurance.

So why is the government proposing to abolish yet another piece of vital consumer protection?  Well, we just don’t know. Taxpayers Australia spokesman Mark Chapman says: “Voices in favour of the move are hard to find, but clearly Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has been heavily lobbied by some groups with a vested interest in keeping the public in the dark.  Some have speculated that some smaller, private charities with an interest in keeping their list of donors secret are behind the move — but they’re not telling, so we just don’t know.”

With the clock ticking, Taxpayers Australia calls for the government to retreat from this measure, and to put the interests of all Australians in a well-regulated charity sector ahead of the interests of a few lobby groups with a vested interest in secrecy.

Over to you, Mr Andrews….