LEON DELANEY:
The federal government has released the Productivity Commission’s review on philanthropic giving. It’s called Future Foundations For Giving, aiming to double donations by 2030 to strengthen Australia’s charity sector and to support vulnerable communities. Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Assistant Minister for Employment, not to mention our local member here in the federal seat of Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh. Good afternoon.
ANDREW LEIGH:
Good afternoon, Leon. And thanks to all of your listeners who make the donations that help our charities do such terrific work.
DELANEY:
All right, this has been a fairly substantial review conducted by the Productivity Commission. It’s put forward a number of recommendations, but right out of the blocks, you’ve rejected one of them, you’ve decided not to stop the charitable status of school building funds. Why is that?
LEIGH:
Our view is that school building funds play a valuable role, Leon, and while we understand the arguments that the Productivity Commission has put, we think they’re an appropriate form of philanthropic endeavour. But we’re certainly open to a range of their different recommendations. They talk about simplifying the deductible gift recipient status for charities, about encouraging First Nations philanthropy and about getting a little bit more transparency into the system.
DELANEY:
The reason the Commission argued to remove the charitable status for school building funds was that they argued that the parents and students were gaining a private benefit and the donations were generally coming from those same families anyway. They were basically just helping themselves. Couldn’t that same argument, though, be applied to any special interest group that has a charity that’s supporting them?
LEIGH:
Well, charitable giving has to be done for the benefit of the whole community. And so you can’t set up a charity which is looking after yourself and your mates. It’s got to be for the broader community. And our view is that school building funds generally play that role, often providing additional assets which will outlast a particular child’s time at a school. We also see a whole lot of philanthropy supporting the arts, sports, environment. Now, in here in Canberra, I think we’ve got as much of it as anyone, on a per capita basis. We do very well in terms of the strength of our community sector. What Labor wants is for us to do even better and to double philanthropy by 2030.
DELANEY:
Yeah, but the argument that can be applied to school building funds, you say there’s a broader community benefit. That same broader benefit applies to all sorts of specialty groups, doesn’t it? Because if somebody’s running a charity that helps a particular specialty group in the community, that takes the pressure off the rest of the community from having to support those people, doesn’t it?
LEIGH:
It certainly does. I mean, it’s not the only argument for backing charities, but if we didn’t have charities, then much of Australian life would grind to a halt. Our arts sector is incredibly reliant on philanthropy. The music sector, likewise. So many of the social services that are out there are being supported by philanthropy, including Vinnies, which was backed by the CEO Sleepout that happens every year. And we know in sporting life that this weekend there’ll be a whole lot of parents going off to sporting games with groups that are organised on a not‑for‑profit basis, backed by philanthropy, making us a stronger and healthier community.
DELANEY:
Alright, what does the report tell us about improving regulation and integrity of charities?
LEIGH:
Well, it makes clear that we could do better in terms of providing transparency and information about how philanthropy is spent, where there could be more data which is provided to stakeholders about their giving. It also recognises that there might be ways in which we can improve the interaction between the state and territory regulators and the Commonwealth one through a National Charity Regulators Forum. One of the recommendations I’m really interested in too, Leon, is this notion of First Nations philanthropy: turbocharging giving that benefits First Nations communities, and the Productivity Commission makes the point that there’s less First Nations philanthropy than I think many of us would like.
DELANEY:
Now, you mentioned the deductible gift recipient system. That is, I believe, the way we decide what organisations are a charity and which ones are not a charity. What needs to be done to improve that?
LEIGH:
At the moment, there’s around 50 different categories and organisations have to pick one of those. They can’t be in more than one. Those categories have sort of evolved over time. In the Productivity Commission’s words, they talk about that system as ‘poorly designed, overly complex’ and ‘without a coherent policy rationale’. Now that sounds like a pretty harsh criticism, but it really is a function of the fact that the system we have now is quite different from the system that we’d have if you sat down and designed it from scratch. So, we’re very open to the Productivity Commission suggestions about how we bring more organisations into that deductible gift recipient status and allow more philanthropy.
DELANEY:
I also read that the Productivity Commission recommends removing the $2 threshold for tax deductibility on donations. Now I have to ask, who in their right mind donates less than $2 to a charity?
LEIGH:
Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the ways in which people are sometimes giving through the ‘round up to give’ approach. So, there’s actually quite a lot of people giving small amounts by the automatic roundup. But at the moment, those small‑scale donations, even though might add up to a lot by the end of the year, aren’t claimable. That’s just one example of small‑scale philanthropy, where allowing or getting rid of the old $2 limit might actually be more sensible.
DELANEY:
Ok, so when you explain it, it does make a bit of sense. Now onto other topics: the CFMEU. Have you ever received any donations from that union?
LEIGH:
I haven’t. Certainly the party that I’m a part of has received donations. But we’ve said, both at an ACT level and at a federal level, that we won’t be taking any further donations until these matters are sorted out.
DELANEY:
Is anybody really surprised by what’s been revealed in recent reports?
LEIGH:
I certainly am. Looking at these reports is shocking. I mean, the thuggery, the alleged bribe‑taking. You know, this is pretty serious stuff. I understand that these are allegations that hadn’t been aired before and I know that many of my friends in the union movement are particularly outraged by this. They’re out every day working to improve pay and conditions for workers, and the last thing they want to see is their good work tarnished by the actions of some people in the construction division of the Victorian CFMEU.
DELANEY:
Well, obviously, among those who suffer the most when there’s corruption and criminal behaviour in unions are the honest members of those unions. They’re amongst the primary victims, that’s clear. But allegations of this nature have been quietly whispered behind closed doors for quite a long time. And you can even go back to 5 years ago when there were big question marks about John Setka. Do we all owe Sally McManus a round of thanks because she was standing up to him 5 years ago when so many other people were leaping to his defence?
LEIGH:
One of Anthony Albanese’s first decisions as Labor leader was to expel John Setka from the Labor party. He couldn’t have been tougher on that particular individual. And we’ve been very clear that there is absolutely no place for thuggery and wrongdoing. We’ve asked the Australian Federal Police to join their state counterparts in investigating the latest allegations that have come forward. Now, at the same time, we’ve moved to appoint an administrator, which is the strongest action that can be taken under the industrial relations system. Those administrators will provide a level of oversight and making sure that this behaviour is appropriately investigated.
DELANEY:
I thought the strongest action available was deregistration?
LEIGH:
Yeah, some people have argued that, and Peter Dutton has been most prominent among them, that what they say is, well, the Builders Labourers Federation was deregistered in the 1980s. Why don’t you deregister the construction division of the CFMEU? The difference is, Leon, back in the 1980s, if you were deregistered you couldn’t continue to participate in the industrial relations system. But as a result of Work Choices, now a deregistered organisation can continue to be part of the industrial relations system. So, it would actually be a gift to those who’ve done wrong within that organisation. They would then operate in a more lawless space, unregulated and outside the scope of the administrator. That’s why the toughest decision is to put an administrator in place.
DELANEY:
Ok. The other issue that arose out of the BLF was that some of the individuals that were behaving badly and that organisation somehow re‑emerged in the new CFMEU after it was created. There didn’t seem to be any obstacles to them resuming that sort of activity.
LEIGH:
Well, there’s certainly penalties in place for people who break industrial relations laws and of course anyone who’s doing something like taking a bribe faces immediate criminal action. We’re very serious about stamping out criminality in this sector. It is vital for integrity within the CFMEU, but it’s also vital because unions are a power of good within the community. Unions didn’t just give us the weekend, the 8‑hour day. They’ve also campaigned for pay equity. They’ve also worked hard for family violence leave. Unions are out there working to make sure that employees get home safely at the end of the day. That good work that unions are doing is only able to be supported if we’re absolutely firm with the thuggery and intimidation that we’ve seen reported this week.
DELANEY:
ACT independent Senator David Pocock says this is just another example of why we need some serious reform for political donors. What do you think?
LEIGH:
Yeah, I’m very keen on getting political donations laws reformed. We’re working hard to try and get quicker reporting of donations and also to bring down the donation threshold. Labor originally set a much lower donation threshold than we have now. It was John Howard who pushed the donation threshold up. Labor voluntarily discloses at a much lower level than the law requires because we think that transparency is appropriate. Political donations can help democracy to work effectively, but transparency is got to be a key part of that.
DELANEY:
Andrew, thanks very much for your time today.