Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I will start where the member for Braddon started in terms of the chaos of this bill being presented last year and coming back again. I will take the opportunity to raise some frustrations in terms of the management of the order of the House. I understand how there are changes that happen and we are notified, but last night we got two different versions of the order of business for today. This morning we got another one that is different to the blue. I believe many of us were working towards the one we were notified by on email and yet we are back on the blue now.
I think this is an important issue for the Leader of the House to deal with. We are dealing with legislation that has significant public interest. All of the business that we do has significant public interest and I am unsure. According to the email we should be on UTAS now, but we are on charity. Could I urge someone in the House or the Leader to clarify for members what is expected next, just out of courtesy, so that anyone who might be wanting to watch online can check in and watch?
I rise for the second time to talk about the Charities and Associations Law (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill, as this bill came on for debate in 2023. I want to say at the outset how important this kind of legislation and bill is. The charity sector is incredibly important across the state and indeed across the whole country, and the generosity of people supporting the charity sector is fundamental to its survival and its capacity to do the work that it does.
We all know that the generosity of people to the charity sector comes in a whole myriad of different ways. Only the other week we were celebrating volunteerism, and people give thousands of hours a year volunteering for charities and other causes. The other way that the community can demonstrate their support for the charity sector is through fundraising. We all know that the charity sector in many ways does work that the government could otherwise be funding.
This is incredibly important, and a bill like this is important so that we can have probity and rigour in the way that fundraising is undertaken. Personally, I am speaking with some experience, having worked 20 years or so in an environmental charity. I can understand how important this is both in terms of charities’ need for fundraising and therefore the sustainability of organisations to do the very good work they do, but also the public confidence around charities and how they do their work, because the fundraising that they do is absolutely critical.
We need to make sure that the public have confidence in the charities that they are donating to, have confidence that the solicitation is fair and have confidence the funds are going to be directed into the activities that are being articulated when fundraising occurs. I have also separately started from scratch with an organisation to have it registered as a charity under the ACNC, and I can tell you that it is a pretty long, pretty arduous and very rigorous process. There is a lot of back and forth. It takes a lot of effort and there can be lots of to and fro with the Australian Tax Office and others as they get involved.
The ACNC do fantastic work regulating this sector and facilitating legitimate charities to have their charitable status recognised, to have deductible gift recipient status awarded and monitoring that going forward. We are also very keen to support anything that makes improvements in this space, with the confidence that the ACNC agree with the broader purpose of this bill, which is to harmonise with federal legislation and ensure that the ACNC covers the activities of charities no matter what jurisdiction they are working in.
The ACNC does really good work, and removing the regulatory burden on a charity to be reporting and requesting the capacity to engage in fundraising in different jurisdictions is welcome, because that can be quite arduous. The 16 National Fundraising Principles are obviously very supportable and bringing Tasmania into line with them and implementing them is very welcome.
I am interested in the new mandatory code of practice to be prescribed through regulations under the Charities Act, and I am very interested in hearing the minister unpack what the process for that is going to be and how it is going to be developed. How is the charitable sector going to have the capacity to feed in, be consulted on the development of that code of practice and make sure that it is appropriate and manageable?
We know that many charities are resource constrained, particularly human resource constrained, and so having the capacity to feed into that consultation and develop a code of practice is incredibly important. Time needs to be given to them to have that input. One of the things that we need to recognise when it comes to having the charity sector is the very nature that these organisations are charities. Having to go out to the public for donations means that they are resource constrained, and it is not only financial, but as I said, also human resource constrained. It is incredibly important to make sure that a code of practice and compliance with the code of practice is appropriate, and that compliance is not too onerous.
I am keen to understand what process is proposed to develop that code and prescribe it through regulation. We support increasing the audit threshold from $250,000 to $500,000. The capacity to reduce the burden on charities with regard to their compliance and reporting requirements by raising that threshold to $500,000 is very welcome, although $500,000 is still not a very big charity, and those at the smaller end have some challenges in meeting their requirements.
We support strengthening the enforcement provisions. Public trust and confidence in the charitable sector and in fundraising is critically important. We are alert to a misuse of enforcement provisions. There are some charities out there for which some people, including members in this House, would like to remove their charitable status, thereby removing their capacity to raise money to do the work that they do, arguably including the charities that I have worked for in the past. We want to watch this carefully, but increasing the statute of limitations from up to three years, with a six-month period in which to commence proceedings, does seem reasonable.
I also want to ask a question in relation to section 6A and whether this gives the commissioner the power to refuse a charity from fundraising in our jurisdiction. There is a role for the commissioner to be notified, but do they actually have the capacity to intervene and refuse the ability to fundraise?
I note several submitters, including the ACNC itself, have raised concerns about Tasmania’s definition of ‘charitable purposes’ departing from the national definition. I concur that having a definition of ‘charitable purpose’ here that is different to the federal legislation does seem like a curious approach when we are in the business of harmonisation. I am interested in the justification from the minister as to why our definition digresses or is different to that at the federal level.
Lastly, I ask the government outline in some more detail why they consider this departure from the national definition appropriate. Are there concerns with the national definition? Are there particular charities that the government considers would not have their charitable purpose captured by the national definition? I also note that some submitters called for the repeal of sections 8, 11 and 14 of the principal act to not have overlapping regulatory regimes. Could the minister please speak to why the government considers that these sections should remain in the act?
These matters notwithstanding, I can indicate broad support for the bill as it stands, and we will be supporting it through this House.
