Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of Minister Seselja's response to this order for the production of documents. May I say what a disappointment that response was—to wait this long for the response that, 'We're still consulting on it.' Charities around the country and the people who rely on them will be understandably disappointed, because they really can't wait any longer for a solution to this issue. They may wonder, and we all may wonder: does this government do any heavy lifting on anything that comes before it? It sure doesn't look like it. Today, we can add fundraising law to a long list of other issues that they have, apparently, absolutely no plan for and that they are stalling on and won't get moving on. This is just one of many of those issues. They have no plan for our faltering economy, no plan to address climate change, no plan to tackle flat wage growth, no plan to address rising bills and out of control energy prices, and the list goes on.

In fact, in that context, the work that charities and nonprofits do is all the more important. It is extremely important work, and they deserve more from this government, because when people do fall on tough times it is often charities and nonprofits that are there to lend a hand. I'm thinking of charities like Foodbank. Foodbank is an amazing charity that helps feed Australians who are suffering from food insecurity. That is an issue that is all too common in our country today. Today there are one in five Australians who were experiencing food insecurity in the last year. It is really distressing to report that about a quarter of those are children. Foodbank is just one of the charities that really needs action from this government to reform fundraising laws. This is a charity that distributes food and groceries to over 2,400 charity partners to help feed food-insecure Australians. Without them, many of these people would just have to go hungry.

It's a problem that's not going away, because even though Foodbank already provides relief to 815,000 Australians every month, they've seen a massive rise in the number of people seeking food relief in the past 12 months. This is a charity that's on the frontline which is dealing with this absolutely pressing national issue, and they are doing so much to support Australians who are experiencing hunger. What they rely on, of course, to be able to do this incredibly important work—to operate and provide this support—is the generosity of the Australians who donate. I am sure that all of those people who make donations to this organisation would want their money to be used as efficiently as possible. They would want their money to go to actually feeding people who are hungry. They would want their money to go to as many people as directly as possible. So we have to wonder how many extra mouths charities like Foodbank could feed if they didn't have to spend time and money on the administration associated with fundraising laws that really belong well in the previous century and not this one.

As we know, according to the sector itself, Australian charities are losing at least $15 million a year on these unnecessary compliance costs that are caused by the overlapping of the different funding laws we have in every state and in the ACT as well. These laws might have made sense before the invention of the internet when fundraisers were still essentially going door to door. But now, in this century, when most fundraising happens online, these laws are absolutely outdated, and the compliance work associated with them is costing our charities who do this work that is so important at least $1.25 million each month. Again, that money could be going towards furthering the social, environmental and other causes that the donors intended their money to go to and not to these unnecessary administration and compliance costs.

To us on this side of the chamber, given how long the government has taken to respond to this and given the response we got from Minister Seselja—that he is still just consulting—it really seems like this government doesn't care about the compliance costs, the red tape, that charities and the not-for-profit sector are facing. Since the report was tabled by the committee earlier this year, charities have wasted over $10 million on these annual costs. Again I think the public, particularly those who donate to those good causes, would be absolutely shocked and extremely disappointed in the government's attitude. I am pretty sure that no-one donates to a charity thinking how great it would be if that money gets lost in red tape, gets lost in those costs just don't need to be there.

But these costs are just part of the problem, and perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that it's taken the government so long to respond to this particular issue and this particular committee report. We know that this government move pretty slowly and they don't like scrutiny. We have seen repeated examples of this recently. They don't like it when charities speak out and advocate on their areas of concern. It really doesn't matter who you are in Australia today—a journalist, a trade union or a charity—if you are speaking out against something that the government is doing, if you're advocating against the government, it wants to shut you up.

The government doesn't seem to care when charities like Foodbank are feeding food-insecure Australians—of course it wants them to do that—but if they advocate and speak out about why so many Australians are actually facing food insecurity the government becomes pretty unhappy. It's now been 18 months since the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission legislation review and there has been no response and no action from this government. Maybe the problem they are facing is that they are just so busy focusing on the other important issues that are facing our country today. Perhaps that's why they haven't yet responded to this legislation review. Perhaps that's why they're not taking the time to respond to this committee report. Well, unfortunately, we know it is not the case that their response on this is so slow because they are taking so much action in other parts of the economy and in other parts of society—because while they've been ignoring these calls for important reforms around charity fundraising laws they've been ignoring lots of other pressing issues as well. They've been ignoring the state of our faltering economy. They've been ignoring record low wage growth. They've been ignoring the rising cost of living. They've been ignoring rampant wage theft. We know that in recent weeks they've been ignoring the criminal activity of the major banks. They've been ignoring the falling living standards of Australians. They've been ignoring the record high levels of underemployment. Basically, if it might take some focus to fix it, then this government is probably ignoring it. Instead of taking action on all of those things and important matters like the one that is in front of us now, they've been focusing on a few other things in an effort to distract us from the things that really matter. We've seen that in recent weeks too, with attacking workers' right to organise being a big focus of this government.

Like with so many pressing issues in our country right now, it is really time that the government stopped sitting on its hands on this issue and did some work to support the charity and not-for-profit sector. The ACNC report and the committee report, which was endorsed widely, made it clear what the recommendations are regarding unifying national fundraising law and the urgent need to fix it. You are the government. This is your job. It's time you got on and fixed it. (Time expired)