John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few years ago I was contacted by a local charity called Youthsafe. They do good work in the community to prevent unintended injury to young people. They take a holistic and wideranging view of safety, focusing on everything from road safety to risk-taking behaviour and highlighting the main causes of harm in teenagers and young people. Their chief executive, Warren Johnson, works tirelessly and intelligently to get their messages out there and to help save lives and livelihoods. But they had a problem relating to designated gift recipient status. DGR is common in Australian charities, and many charities use it to incentivise donations that people can claim back at the end of the financial year. We also know that many charities don't get it. We expect to claim back money donated to a health charity, but not a political donation. But we don't often think about what separates the two. Some types of charities automatically get DGR—educational institutions and fire and emergency services, for example. If you don't fit inside these groups, often for fairly arbitrary reasons, you need to apply to the minister for special acceptance. Youthsafe fell into this category.

Interestingly, Youthsafe don't need DGR to attract donations. At the time, they raised very little money from donations and weren't seeking to change this model. Instead, they wanted to apply for grants, which is where the story gets interesting. Many grants are only applicable to charities with DGR status, as if DGR status confers legitimacy on a charity. Without DGR, Youthsafe couldn't apply for grants and were staring into a financial abyss. I'm delighted to say that we were able to get DGR status for Youthsafe. But it wasn't easy. It took four years, six ministers and a lot of lobbying. Treasury doesn't like to give DGR status easily, as it can be a drain on taxpayers. That's an understandable concern, but not one that applies here. We need to create an indicator for a charity's legitimacy that is not also bound in financial or other gains. It makes sense for rules to insist on certain markers to be met before conferring a grant. But having that marker be something that locks out legitimate charities makes no sense. In this case, all's well that ends well. But I'm concerned that there are other groups out there in Youthsafe's predicament that are not lucky enough to have their stubborn persistence or a leader like Warren. We could be seeing worthwhile charities going to the wall over a tiny bureaucratic tick box, leaving the people who depend on them behind to fend for themselves. This must be a simple fix, but for now congratulations to Warren and his team at Youthsafe. Thank you for the very good work you do.