The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission was established by the Gillard government in 2012 with the intended purpose of cutting the red tape faced by Australia’s charities. So far, the regulator has failed to make any significant progress on this goal or on its two other main goals: increasing public trust in charities and improving the quality of regulatory oversight in the sector.

New Zealand tried the charity-commission model of charity regulation and found that it did not provide value for money. Australia should learn from that example and abandon the failed charity-commission model.

The increasing importance of high-wealth donors in Australia and the rise of independent charity watchdogs globally are only two of the many factors that suggest there are more effective ways of overseeing charities.

Independent regulation is just as effective and less costly to the taxpayer, and it should be allowed to flourish.