The Albanese Government is working with charities and supporting State and Territory governments to harmonise fundraising laws.
Australia’s state and territory fundraising laws were developed at a time when most fundraising was conducted in person.
Today, with most fundraising done online, the cost and complexity of complying with multiple state and territory fundraising requirements is a major issue for the charity sector.
Substantial progress has already been made on the development of a national framework for fundraising laws, with feedback from industry consultations with the charity sector in February and March 2022 used to inform this development.
The framework adopts a principles‑based approach to enable charities and donors to have a clear understanding of conduct, but also allows for greater flexibility as to how charities achieve compliance.
It also broadly aligns with existing regulatory codes of conduct, minimising the impacts on fundraisers that are already members of regulatory associations such as the Fundraising Institute of Australia.
On 9 September 2022, State and Territory Consumer Ministers met in Adelaide and reaffirmed their support for the reform of outdated and inconsistent conduct obligations across state and territory fundraising laws.
A Working Group of jurisdictions is finalising a framework of nationally‑consistent fundraising conduct requirements for the Council on Federal and Financial Relations to agree and release in late 2022 (subject to the agreement of all participating jurisdictions).