Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What a word salad from the minister there in response to a pretty clear proposal from the Australian Greens through Senator Faruqi. The problem is obvious here, which is that the definition of 'animal welfare work' under the Income Tax Assessment Act is too narrow. That is the problem here. As Senator Faruqi said, Australians abhor animal cruelty. If you were to go out onto the street—whether it's in Sydney, Geraldton, Darwin or Hobart, or anywhere in-between—and say to people, 'What do you think about animal cruelty?' you would get a near-unanimous response that it's abhorrent and that organisations that work to advocate for improved animal welfare standards and work to prevent animal cruelty should be eligible for DGR status. The fact that they are not is a clear and obvious problem in our statutes. It's a clear and obvious problem that can be remedied very simply and can actually be remedied today by this chamber supporting Senator Faruqi's amendments.

Animal welfare charities are consistently in the top three causes that Australian donors support. Those donations, of course, would increase if there were more animal welfare charities that had DGR status, therefore allowing for tax deductibility of donations. The minister has mentioned the Productivity Commission review, but they actually did recommend expanding tax deductible gift recipient status to include animal welfare advocacy charities. We heard Senator Roberts's contribution, which, again, was vile and discriminatory and divisive and dangerous, but he referred to Equality Australia. The minister quite rightly got up and explained why Equality Australia should have DGR status, and the Greens strongly support Equality Australia having DGR status. But some of the same arguments that the minister outlined in relation to Equality Australia could equally apply to many of the organisations which the Greens, through these amendments moved by Senator Faruqi, are attempting to ensure do have DGR status. The same arguments could well apply around, for example, advocacy.

So we say to the minister and to Labor that if it's good enough for Equality Australia—which it is; the Greens strongly support this, and we look forward to the passage of this bill through the Senate today to give Equality Australia, an outstanding organisation who does really important work, DGR status—this is an opportunity to make sure a number of other organisations who do really important and critical work in the animal welfare field also have DGR status.