ALI MOORE:
Under the law, The Australian Charities and Not‑For‑Profit Commission is actually bound by secrecy provisions. Well, the Federal Government is now hoping to change that. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. Andrew Leigh, welcome to the program.
ANDREW LEIGH:
G'day, Ali, great to be with you and your listeners.
MOORE:
What does the secrecy provision currently cover?
LEIGH:
Well, right now it prevents the charities commission from talking about ongoing investigations, or indeed, from confirming that it's looking into an organisation. And so that means, as you talked about in the Hillsong example, that there might be a TV show that splashes on Sunday, and on Monday morning, people are reasonably asking, "Well, what's the watchdog doing about it?" And the watchdog isn't then able to speak out and say, "We're looking into it."
MOORE:
Well, why not? Why was that put in place?
LEIGH:
Well, it's for reasonable reasons. It's ensuring that charities have their privacy maintained, and that allegations aren't aired where there isn't a finding of wrongdoing. But in certain cases it can be more problematic for sector as a whole, if there isn't some disclosure that the regulator is looking into it.
MOORE:
I guess there's a balance there, isn't there?
LEIGH:
There absolutely is. And so it's a balance between integrity and transparency. Other comparable regulators in Australia have the power to disclose where it's in the public interest. Internationally, counterparts to the charities commission have the ability to make disclosures. We think it's appropriate, now the charities commission is nearly 11 years old, to modernise the act and allow it to make those disclosures, in the interests of the wider sector. No one gets more outraged about these occasional suggestions of wrongdoing in charities than the hard‑working people in the Australian charity sector.
MOORE:
So, well, given that, I mean you've released an exposure draft. How are you going to balance, you know, allowing people to know what's going on around alleged misconduct, but also ensuring that that risk to reputation is not raised unnecessarily?
LEIGH:
It's a public interest test. I imagine that it would be a rare instance in which a disclosure was made, but it allows the regulator the ability to do it, and it's all about trying to ensure that we bolster trust and confidence in the charities sector.
Now, Ali, I wouldn't want any of your listeners to think that charities are the problem in Australia; charities are the solution to so many problems that we face, whether it's community isolation, deforestation, or the work that's being done at sporting clubs in our suburbs. Charities are doing fabulous work through the community, and the charities commission needs to maintain the utmost trust and confidence in the sector, which is why we've got these reforms out to exposure draft.
MOORE:
Are they keen on the reforms themselves? Do they see it as actually making their work harder or easier?
LEIGH:
The charities commission is keen, the sector is keen. I would imagine that this will receive broad support in the community, but you put things out for consultation in order to find out if you're wrong, so we're very open to suggestions, proposals, that come through. We've done a lot of consultation on other bills we've brought before Parliament, so this is just the way the Government operates.
MOORE:
I guess though, there is a counter‑argument, and that is that they could always do what they did in the case of Hillsong, which is go to the subject, as in this case, Hillsong, ask if it could be made public, and they agreed. Was that always available to the charities regulator?
LEIGH:
Certainly is, but there you're relying on the goodwill of the charity to have a disclosure that there's an investigation taking place into them. It may well be that a charity says, "No, I don't want you to go public by saying you're investigating me, wait until you're finished before you say anything to the public." But if things are splashed all over the media, that can really cause a problem for people's confidence in the sector.
And I think back to the UK which had a donation scandal where an elderly woman took her own life a number of years back, saying that she'd been hounded by a number of charities for donations. That really shook the UK charity sector. It hurt not just the charities that were hounding her, but also the sector as a whole. I don't want to see scandals like that happen in Australia. We need to make sure that Australians have trust and confidence in the regulator and in charities more broadly.
MOORE:
You're listening to Andrew Leigh, who's Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. And, Andrew Leigh, if I can take that last hat of yours and ask you an economic question, because of course it's been a significant few days for the government with things like the Employment White Paper, which laid out the goal of full employment, and we had a discussion on this program yesterday, and I'm interested in your thoughts about how the goal of Labor of full employment rubs up against the Reserve Bank and its level of employment that it considers to be appropriate that won't stoke inflation currently sitting at around four and a half per cent.
I know the Treasurer describes the Reserve Bank target as technical, but it does impact policy. So how do the two targets; full employment and the RBA's four and a half per cent, how do they work together?
LEIGH:
Yeah, it's a great question, Ali, and what we're doing is trying to make sure that we've got a well‑paying secure job for anyone who wants one, without spending too much time looking. That's how people should think of full employment conceptually. Now, there's a definition of that, the Non‑Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, and the better we can do with matching workers to available jobs, the lower that can be brought down.
So the White Paper has Treasury's estimates that that Non‑Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, has come down from four and three quarters to four and a quarter per cent. That's really good news, because we're doing a better job providing people with skills they need for the jobs in the modern economy.
The Government's got a really important role to play there, and of course, the Reserve Bank will have its mandate to meet both full employment and price stability. That's carved on the wall on Martin Place, you've got to expect them to adhere to that.
MOORE:
It is. But that's my point. If everyone ‑ and this is the mantra of your Employment White Paper, I'm not quoting, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but in essence it's everyone who wants a job can get a job. And that won't mean, you know, a zero unemployment rate, we know that, because there will be people who won't want one, or who are between jobs or whoever. But it will mean a substantially lower unemployment rate than we currently have, so how do you achieve that and this promise, and this expectation that you're giving people, without stoking inflation?
LEIGH:
We've got to get more people getting the training they need for the jobs for the future. Matching workers to jobs is key. That's got to do with our employment services reforms, it's also got to do with providing those fee‑free TAFE places and university places, and the TAFE Centres of Excellence.
We know that technology is increasing, and one way to think about this, Ali, is as technology moves ahead in leaps and bounds, education has to keep up. If education doesn't keep up with technology, then we end up with mass joblessness. And instead we've got right now, one of the lowest unemployment rates we've had in my life-time, having unemployment on a sustained basis, below four per cent is a remarkable outcome. It doesn't just mean more people in jobs; it means that people get jobs who wouldn't have otherwise gotten a look‑in when unemployment was in the double digits. People who have unconventional CVs, who might have a criminal record, people from a non‑English speaking background, people who are neurodiverse, just don't have a chance of getting an interview when unemployment's in the double digits but do have a chance of getting in the labour market if we can keep unemployment low.
MOORE:
So what's the unemployment rate at full employment?
LEIGH:
Well, we think we can maintain unemployment somewhere around that Non‑Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.
MOORE:
Which is still, as I think you said, it was four and a quarter?
LEIGH:
Four and a quarter. I mean, if we're in that ballpark, that's great. I mean, it's got to be said that we've managed to keep this sustained rate below four per cent, I think that's fantastic as well. This isn't an exact science, Ali. There is also the issue of underutilisation, which means that the unemployment rate isn't the only thing that matters for inflation. If you've got people who aren't able to get enough hours, then a higher ‑ you might have a lower rate of unemployment consistent with stable ‑ with price stability. So it's not only the unemployment rate that we want to look, and that's –
MOORE:
Yes, because one thing, I suppose people may not know, but when they measure unemployment, they are only measuring people who are actively seeking work in the four weeks prior to the day that they take the measurement, or people who are about to start a job, they don't measure people who might want more hours, but aren't looking for them.
LEIGH:
That's right. And so that's where we look at underutilisation as well, and so the Australian Bureau of Statistics asks part‑timers if they'd like more hours, and that's also an important factor in terms of how much slack there is in the labour market.
When we're talking about an economy that works for all, we want to make sure not only that people have a job, but that they have a good job. The Full Employment White Paper in 1945, that was initiated by John Curtin, was very much a touchstone for our Employment White Paper. And that Full Employment White Paper of 1945 came in an environment of double digit unemployment for the previous couple of decades and managed to bring unemployment massively down in the decades after the war. It's an inspiring story and one that we hope can be replicated again today.
MOORE:
Andrew Leigh, as I have got you, and you are an Assistant Federal Minister, we don't have many of you on this program, so I want to take the opportunity to ask you ‑ we have quite a few of you, but you know, it's not a constant thing ‑ I just want to ask you about the case of Mike Pezzullo, who's one of Canberra's most powerful public servants. He's stepped aside after a whole range of text messages allegedly sent by him to a Liberal Party power broker, which appear to show that he inserted himself into the political process.
I know that it's the subject of an investigation, I know he's stepped aside, but just two questions: one, if you'll go to it, can he survive; but two, a bigger question beyond him and his individual circumstances about the role of the public service, and the trust that we can have, that they do operate as non‑partisan bureaucrats who are providing frank and fearless advice.
LEIGH:
Yeah, look, it's a great question to go to, Ali. Obviously this is a question of integrity, and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on an ongoing investigation. Mike Pezzullo has stepped aside, Stephanie Foster's acting as the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs while the inquiry by the Australian Public Service commission takes place.
But you should be really confident that the Australian Public Service is in top nick. One of the real pleasures of being in government after the nine years that I've spent in opposition is getting to work with so many great public servants, remarkable people, willing to serve both sides of government ‑
MOORE:
So you'd say he was ‑ he's ‑ okay. You'd say if it is confirmed, because I take your point that you don't want to do that, but you say this is a one‑off case, this is not something that we need to be concerned about through the public service.
LEIGH:
Look, I don't think it's appropriate for me to say anything about the case, but I would give your listeners the assurance that we have some remarkable public servants; that the public servants, whether they're in the National Disability Insurance Agency, whether they're staffing the borders, whether they're there in emergencies handing out disaster assistance, are passionately committed to Australia, and to building a better nation. They're bright, thoughtful, articulate, they share their policy ideas, they're not scared about doing that, but the public service overall understands very clearly the line between partisanship and good policy advice. They're willing to give that frank and fearless advice, and one of the joys of getting to be an Assistant Minister is getting to work with great public servants.
MOORE:
I know you won't go there, but you read those text messages, and if they are proved, they are obviously cause for some concern. But at this stage they are just alleged. Andrew Leigh, we really appreciate your time, thank you so much.
LEIGH:
Thanks so much, Ali.