Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak on the Tasmanian Community Fund Amendment Bill 2024. I thank the minister and the staff for the briefings that we have had, noting that we had two briefings, one with the minister in attendance. Obviously, this is considered a pretty special bill. Maybe I will come back to that again later.
I want to begin by speaking about the Greens perspective more broadly on the wonderful Tasmanian Community Fund and the incredible work that the fund does to provide grants to not-for-profit organisations and for projects that benefit the Tasmanian community. The Tasmanian Community Fund is an incredibly important institution in our state. It enables many organisations to do much-needed community building work in many communities around Tasmania and it is much loved for that reason.
It was established in 1999 with proceeds from the sale of the Trust Bank and it was set up to ensure that there was community benefit that flowed from the sale of the Trust Bank to the people of Tasmania and that that benefit was maintained for the long-term. I had the pleasure of being part of a project that received a grant from the Tasmanian Community Fund back in 2010, when I was working in a Neighbourhood House in the northern suburbs of Launceston.
There were two Neighbourhood Houses working together providing a literacy project and we were successful in putting in an application for that, and that was really important work because we know that literacy rates within Tasmania are low, that we have quite a low level of functional literacy. That is a critical work and an important project that the Tasmanian Community Fund was able to support and make happen with the grant that they provided.
One of the things about the Tasmanian Community Fund is the importance of independence within it. The fund was set up to be separate from government, to be at arm’s length, to not have the government involved in the decisions that were being made about the funding decisions that were being made and independence is a key tenet of the TCF.
There have been threats along the way already to the independence of the Tasmanian Community Fund. This is not the first time that the government has tried to step in and undermine the independence of the Tasmanian Community Fund. One of the commitments made in the inaugural budget of the Hodgman Liberal government in 2014 was to abolish the independent TCF board and establish an unpaid independent panel with the intention to reallocate funds for the board to ‘government to programs’ so the funds could be reallocated to be used by the government for their programs. Completely flies in the face of the independence of the TCF and it goes to show there has been a long history of the government wanting to have a say in the way the TCF use their money. The independence of the TCF is paramount. The government already has every cent of public money at their disposal to spend however they want. There is no justification for the government to have any involvement at all in the expenditure of TCF funds. However, that is exactly what the minister has indicated in his second reading speech:
The TCF board will be supported through the Department of Premier and Cabinet to obtain advice, if required, to inform its decision‑making on matters such as what may constitute a political campaign or a political decision.
The Department of Premier and Cabinet will therefore be the arbiter of what is or is not a political purpose. There is no detail on how this advice will be provided or which office of the department will be responsible. There is no detail on how the TCF board may appeal or disagree with the advice provided by DPAC. It is completely unacceptable for a department of this government or any government to be the decision‑maker on what is or is not a political purpose. We are far too involved and wrapped up in it ourselves as political parties to be able to make that decision. This amendment will unquestionably impede the independence of the TCF. It will do exactly what the minister claims this bill seeks to avoid. It will politicise TCF funding decisions.
It is not difficult to imagine what may happen when a community group submits a grant application for a cause the government of the day does not support. All that would need to happen is for it to be stamped as a political purpose by the department and it would be dead in the water. That would have a chilling effect on community organisations. They will be discouraged from even submitting an application to the TCF if there is even the slightest chance that their organisation or their project could be deemed political: LGBTQIA+ community organisations, multicultural groups, women’s groups, Aboriginal cultural organisations, and youth justice organisations. All of these are important community groups which provide essential services and programs across the state. They may be discouraged from applying for TCF funding because of the risk that what they do might be seen as for a political purpose.
There is quite a bit of history to how we got here with this piece of legislation before us today. The history starts back with the referendum debate – with a referendum. It was not a debate at that time. Initially the referendum was supported by both political parties at a federal level. Then the situation changed and all of a sudden the Liberals decided at a federal level that they no longer supported the yes vote for a referendum, and that they did not want to see the Voice getting up. As the member for Clark has just said then, it is a shame. At the time what was happening in Tasmania was that every political party was in support of the referendum and of the Voice for ensuring that Aboriginals in Australia would have a greater say and would have a pathway to improvements in the conditions that they live with, and in closing the gap.
In that context, the TCF made a decision to provide funding to an organisation that was involved in education. We know that the TCF deemed that the application from Reconciliation Tasmania, or the project with Reconciliation Tasmania, was part of an education process that they had. For educational purposes they audited it under that banner. They also had a long history of providing support for grants that assist Tasmanian Aboriginal communities. We had three political parties who all agreed and supported the referendum. We had an educational procedure and educational process in place within TCF. We had a long history of TCF providing grants to Aboriginal communities. They made that grant.
I think we all know the history of what happened with the referendum, that terrible history. The referendum did not get up and the Voice did not happen. Then it was after that that some people – one person, I have tried to find out how many community members had an issue with that grant and I have not been able to find that information. Yesterday when I asked the minister, he said ‘a number’. One is a number.
Ms Haddad – Jonno Duniam.
Ms ROSOL – We know that Senator Jonno Duniam referred this to the Auditor‑General. We do not know if anyone else had had any issues with this grant. We have not been provided with that information.
To have this amendment in front of us and supposedly saying that this maintains the independence of the TCF, and we will not have political processes and political things as part of this, this will be protected against – this whole amendment is politically motivated. The history is there from what happened with the referendum: from the grant being provided as part of the Yes campaign for the referendum, through to the complaint from a Liberal senator who did not support the referendum, through to the Auditor‑General investigating and making a report through to this piece of legislation.
I might note that the Auditor‑General did not recommend legislation. I have here the recommendations that the Auditor‑General made that the TCF:
- Conducts and documents due diligence including recording the legislative basis, key considerations, conflicts of interest, assessment of risks, and any advice relied upon in reaching its decisions.
- Adopts better practice grants management to objectively assess the relative merit of grants with clear reasons why applications are approved or denied.
- Provides regular guidance, training, and clear directions to staff to ensure they are able to comply with Tasmanian State Service principles of remaining impartial and apolitical while following the Board’s directions.
- Adopts better practice records management in accordance with the Archives Act and associated guidance.
I cannot anywhere in there see a recommendation for the legislation that we have in front of us today. Nowhere in those recommendations does it say that the TCF should be banned from supporting political purposes. In fact, it is evident from reading the Auditor‑General’s report that the recommendations are designed to be adopted internally by the TCF board. These are processes that a board can conduct themselves without needing a piece of legislation to be enacted to do them.
I spoke today with the chair of the TCF board. I was advised by them that actually the TCF have implemented nearly all of these recommendations. There is one that they are still working on at the moment. If the government wants to stand here and claim that this piece of legislation is because of the Auditor‑General’s recommendations, that does not actually stand up. It does not stand up from the recommendations. It does not stand up because the TCF have already done the work or almost completed the work of implementing the recommendations.
I note that the government has an overwhelming number of recommendations from various inquiries for legislative changes that they are yet to make. We are often standing in here hearing about recommendations that have not been implemented, up into the hundreds. There are outstanding recommendations from the commission of inquiry, from the Weiss Independent Review, and from the Cox Review, to name a few. The government has not made a convincing case as to why these recommendations need to be enshrined into law. They have not made a case for why they have gone above and beyond the recommendations from the report with the obligations they intend to foist on the TCF in this bill.
The minister has stated the amendments bring the TCF board’s accountability and governance obligations into line with those of other statutory boards with similar responsibilities for public funds. I ask the minister to advise which other statutory boards are required to release a draft of their strategic plan for a 21‑day public comment period. I would also like the minister to indicate where the Auditor‑General has recommended that the TCF release their strategic plan for public comment. I would also like advice as to which other statutory boards are required to audit their grant management frameworks or similar every four years, and provide a copy to the minister with a written statement of the steps taken, if any, by the board in response to the audit and where the Auditor‑General made this recommendation in their report.
The government has grossly overreached into the functions of the independent Tasmanian Community Fund through this bill and there is no justification for it. Since the minister has not sufficiently justified the need for these overreaching provisions, there is only one explanation as to why this bill has been brought, and everyone in the community sector knows why that is. This bill is nothing but a punishment to the TCF for supporting the Voice referendum.
In his second reading speech and in briefings yesterday, the minister indicated that the new TCF board intends to engage in some sort of consultation process to:
Understand community views on the TCF and its purpose.
and that it is necessary to bring on this amendment bill to:
Give Tasmanians confidence that we have acted on the Auditor‑General’s recommendations and support the continued work and independence of the Tasmanian Community Fund.
This is circuitous logic to us. What if the community consultation says that they think the purpose of the TCF is to support political purposes and campaigns? How will that consultation process interact with this bill?
It seems to be a waste of the parliament’s time to bring this bill on now if some sort of review process will be entered into in the near future. And I also understand that the TCF are interested in the whole act being reviewed rather than just having one selective part of this act being reviewed and amended.
This is a really targeted amendment for reasons of political motivation. The Greens, you have probably gathered from what I have said, do not support this piece of legislation and will not be voting for it. I am really disappointed that it has been brought before the parliament today.
I am also disappointed, I understand, that the TCF board have been in place for six weeks and in that time have not yet had time to meet and fully get their head around this legislation as a new board. I understand there was a position of the previous board, but now we have a new board. It is unfortunate that we have this bill up for debate today when a key stakeholder, the stakeholder who is affected by this legislation, has not yet had time to form a position and make a submission and feedback around this piece of legislation.
We do not support it. We cannot support it.
