Thank you for the generous introduction. It’s wonderful to be with you today on the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I acknowledge their elders and recognise all First Nations people present.
It’s a real pleasure to be here with Sue Woodward, your remarkable head, and also with Rob Heferen from the ATO joining us today.
The ‘One ACNC’ motto really is apt for what we are doing today, bringing together that conversation between the Tax Office and the ACNC for the good of all Australians.
I was struck, looking at the 365 charities that you registered in November 2024, by the sheer breadth of Australia’s community groups.
Looking through those names is a reminder of all the organisations that help Australians.
There are organizations in the arts, like Bump In Productions in Queensland and Friends of Organ Pipes in Victoria.
There are organisations in health. You registered Rare Neurological Disease Research and a group called Be Lung Fit.
There are organisations that help kids; you registered toy libraries in Bright and Shenton Park.
There are organisations specifically focused on assisting women, such as the Magnetic Island Women’s Shed and Soroptimist International in South Australia.
There is a huge number of organisations that work across education. You seem to have registered just about every P&C organization in the ACT.
And U3A groups, looking to the other end of the age spectrum, in places like Maryborough and Dunolly, Shepparton, Roma, and Kilmore, where my grandfather used to be a Methodist Minister.
You registered the Sunbury Blue Light Disco – who knew blue light discos were still a thing?
You registered organisations that work in the environment, such as Harcourt Valley Landcare. You registered organisations that help veterans, such as Veterans Assist in Albany in Western Australia. And you registered a huge range of different religious organisations, groups operating across the country and across the spectrum of faith communities.
Those 365 charities are just a small number of the many charities working in Australia, but they go out into their neighbourhoods in order to connect Australians together.
That act of connecting people is absolutely vital.
As you know, over the course of the last couple of generations, we have seen a move towards disconnection.
Australians know fewer neighbours, have fewer friends than we did back in the 1980s.
We have seen a decline in the share of Australians attending a faith service or being part of a trade union, a drop in the share of Australians who are volunteering or playing organised sport.
But the solution lies in Australia’s charities and in the work, you do to build them up.
Now, building up charities doesn’t require an ‘anything goes’ approach.
The work you do in compliance is vital to building a strong Australian charity sector.
Australian donors need to have faith in knowing that their donations will go towards good charitable causes, and they can only do that if we have appropriate compliance mechanisms to crack down on that small minority of charities doing the wrong thing.
But together, what you do is work to build a stronger, more connected society.
It’s not something government talks about enough, and it’s one reason why I’m so passionate about the charities portfolio.
I took on the charities portfolio for my party when we went into opposition in 2013 and was really pleased to be appointed Assistant Minister for Charities in 2022 because I believe that it’s not just a portfolio about how we regulate charities, important as that is, it’s also about how we build community and how we strengthen social partnerships.
Václav Havel, the Czech poet who became the first president of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, was a keen beer brewer.
He argued that when people got together to brew beer, they didn’t just make a delicious drink, they also shared ideas and built ties.
He argued, in the context of living under repressive communist rule, that this helped to strengthen democracy.
Havel said that democracy isn’t just about free and fair elections though, of course, it is that. It’s also about the ties between people.
Beer brewing, Havel argued, was fundamental to a healthy democracy, as is Little Athletics, as are music groups, as are those environmental groups.
We’re meeting at a time when democracy is under pressure around the globe.
The Economist Intelligence Unit has talked about a ‘democracy recession’, and the rise of angry, scratchy, populist politics is turning a lot of people off engagement with democracy.
But strong community groups aren’t just a way of improving the health and happiness of the community, they’re also vital to building a strong democracy.
So, thank you for all that you do. Thank you for the perspectives that you bring. The diversity of views and ideas comes from engaging with local community groups, the connections that you build among one another.
The ‘One ACNC’ philosophy really is vital to ensuring that the organisation performs at its best.
So many Australians look to you to see that we have a well‑organised, vibrant, well‑regulated charity sector.
You have a remarkable leader in Sue Woodward. I don’t think there is anyone in Australia who has done more to help build that strong charity and not‑for‑profit sector across the country.
You have a great advisory board with a diversity of views, including First Nations, CALD, and youth perspectives.
Those differences in perspective are extraordinarily important.
Through diversity, we build strength, and one of the great successes of Australia has been the way in which we’ve drawn on those different sources of diversity to be one of the most prosperous, vibrant, and happy countries in the world.
I hope all of you get a chance to have a good break at the end of the year.
I know you’ve been working extraordinarily hard throughout the year.
Many of you, I’m sure, will be giving back to some of those community groups that help assist the vulnerable, because this is a time of joy for many but also a time of pressure for some families, and it is charities and not‑for‑profits that are out there.
Thank you again for the chance to speak with you today, and I very much look forward to your questions.