New facts have vindicated Kevin Andrews's strong position on abolishing the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC), just as his successor as minister for Social Services has backed away from that Coalition election promise.
The ACNC boasts that it has deregistered more than 6,000 charities in its first two years of operation. But according to the Guardian Australia this week, only six charities have had their charitable status revoked for illegal activity or for failing to comply with regulations.
The rest-the vast majority-either chose to be removed from the charity register voluntarily or were deregistered because the commission could not locate them. The latter case usually means that the charity in question has ceased to exist. Charities go out of business all the time, and if a charity has no assets to dispose of, it often simply dissolves without bothering to notify the federal government of its closure.
The ACNC was an unprecedented intrusion on the part of the federal government into the realm of civil society. Never before had the not-for-profit sector been subject to its own dedicated federal regulator. You might assume, therefore, that this new regulator was created in response to some particular problem that indicated to the federal government that the sector was not sufficiently regulated before. But no such problem was ever pointed out.
As far back as 2012, Kevin Andrews asked proponents of the new charity commission to explain "the mischief that requires this new monolithic regulatory structure". My 2014 paper Independent Charities, Independent Regulators expressed the same scepticism.
The revelation that only six charities have been deregistered for bad behaviour proves that this scepticism was well warranted. If fraud and wrongdoing are such minor problems in the sector, surely we didn't a multimillion-dollar new regulator with unprecedented powers over charities' internal operations in order to police it.
Scott Morrison has announced that he has "no immediate plans" to continue his predecessor's push to replace the ACNC with a less burdensome body. He should reconsider.
Helen Andrews is a Policy Analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Morrison should reconsider ACNC backdown
Morrison should reconsider ACNC backdown
The ACNC boasts that it has deregistered more than 6,000 charities in its first two years of operation. But according to the Guardian Australia this week, only six charities have had their charitable status revoked for illegal activity or for failing to comply with regulations.
The rest-the vast majority-either chose to be removed from the charity register voluntarily or were deregistered because the commission could not locate them. The latter case usually means that the charity in question has ceased to exist. Charities go out of business all the time, and if a charity has no assets to dispose of, it often simply dissolves without bothering to notify the federal government of its closure.
The ACNC was an unprecedented intrusion on the part of the federal government into the realm of civil society. Never before had the not-for-profit sector been subject to its own dedicated federal regulator. You might assume, therefore, that this new regulator was created in response to some particular problem that indicated to the federal government that the sector was not sufficiently regulated before. But no such problem was ever pointed out.
As far back as 2012, Kevin Andrews asked proponents of the new charity commission to explain "the mischief that requires this new monolithic regulatory structure". My 2014 paper Independent Charities, Independent Regulators expressed the same scepticism.
The revelation that only six charities have been deregistered for bad behaviour proves that this scepticism was well warranted. If fraud and wrongdoing are such minor problems in the sector, surely we didn't a multimillion-dollar new regulator with unprecedented powers over charities' internal operations in order to police it.
Scott Morrison has announced that he has "no immediate plans" to continue his predecessor's push to replace the ACNC with a less burdensome body. He should reconsider.
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