David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to sum up the debate on the Charities Bill 2013. Perhaps it is because I am an idealist, but I really do hold very dear to my heart the notion that members who come into this place and seek to purport to represent their communities might actually read the bill that they are debating rather than reading the talking points that have been shabbily and hastily put together by the shadow minister. I know that there have been various contributions, and I want to really focus my response to those contributions around a couple of points.

I begin by saying that I welcome the member for Hasluck's contribution to the debate. He made a range of allegations about a lack of consultation. I am not aware of any previous efforts on his part to bring any organisations that have concerns about this legislation to my attention. Had he done so, I would have done what I am about to do now, and that is to extend to him the opportunity either to bring those organisations here to Canberra or to facilitate some sort of contact. I would be more than happy to meet with them. If he is fair dinkum, he will take me up on that offer. He made a number of claims about how people on the government's side have no understanding of charities. Indeed, he said, 'All they want to do is saddle charities with red tape.' Let me just remind the member for Hasluck—who, like me, was not in this parliament when his side of politics were in government—that I took a very close and active interest in the charitable and not-for-profit sector back then. I recall very well the treatment that the not-for-profit and charitable sector were subjected to under the coalition government.

I begin with gag clauses. He waxes lyrical about how they want to support the not-for-profit sector. They wanted to support them so much while in government that they slapped gag orders on them. They shut them up and shut them down. They cut their funding if they spoke out.

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