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good morning everyone my name is Tessa boy Kane I'm Deputy CEO of theing coun of Social Service and I'm delighted to welcome you all to this uh sector briefing around the charity and not reforms that are currently underway the range of reforms and the implications of those reforms are all areas of work that I think parts of sector have been working on for a very long time but I'm not sure we necessarily would have anticipated them coming in the way they come with the timing that they come and the sequencing that they come and with the amount of pressure that they in turn produced for the sector to be across and responding to those areas of perform AOS has a very long history of working in this area of policy around how we support and sustain and effective Community sector but we've been incredibly conscious as we've undertaken in that work that maintaining the sector's engagement and understanding of what's underway is a really critical part of the work that we need to do of course we're not always resourced to do the kind of briefing and the kind of work with our own members let alone the much broader parts of the not the profit sector that we would like to do and that we see as important to ensure that level of Engagement across the sector and so to that end we are incredibly grateful and I think very respectful of nab's recognition that this kind of work that the resourcing of community organizations and Charities to come together to have briefings and even caucusing discussions around these issues is a really critical role that an organization like NAB can play so I'd like to acknowledge nab's support of this event I'd like to thank in particular the work of Christy Jennings and her team including Nicola Carter whove done all of the logistics the provision of this very welcoming space and the communication to make sure that people were aware of this event and I'd also like to acknowledge in particular Michael bedwall and the team from government education community business at MB whove sponsored this event and made it possible for us today the order of proceedings is um effectively a seminar from 9:30 until 12:30 we're going to break it into two sections so we're going to spend the first part of the morning talking about the Australian Charities and not for-profits commission and I'm delighted to be able to um welcome Susan Pasco who's the interim Comm and who will take up the mantle as commissioner of the acnc when it opens its doors and she'll also be accompanied by Mari be who her assistant commissioner and certainly the melians in the room they're probably both very familiar figures in terms of the work that they've done around CH so when they join us they will be talking about the um work of the ACMC and its implications for Community Services once you opens its doors beyond the the nuts and bolts of what the acnc means for for the sector the purpose of this briefing is really to bring members of the sector up to speed on the origins of this reform with a particular focus on the acnc and also on the work towards a modernized definition of charity so again both areas that have a very long history but I think in terms of the amount of work that's happening sometimes in other areas very important to remember those issues that are really at the essence of a charitable sector and why there is this move for reforms on both those fronts we're very conscious that there are a lot of people in the room who have their own expertise on these issues but also a lot of people in the room for whom this will be a briefing around issues that they might have known were were happening but didn't necessarily have the details so we'll make sure that there's time for question and discussion both after Susan's presentation before we break from morning team and then after morning team we'll move into the second session which is looking at the reform to modernize the definition of charity and again I'm delighted that we're joined by Esther Abrams from Chang makers who'll be able to contribute the work that Chang makers have been doing on this topic and um and I'll be giving you an ao's perspective on the again the history of that reform but really where it's up to now so that we can have a pretty well informed discussion about next steps and where that leads the organizations in the sector so to begin the Australian Charities and not for-profits commission is scheduled to open on the 1st of October this year it's based here in norbourne it has recruited a staff including from very excellent people from the community sector but also people with incredibly important knowledge of regulatory bodies and of working across government the non for-profit sector and other sectors um as part of its makeup so there's there's quite a lot of exposure to the work of the acnc at the moment but one of the one of the critical issues in terms of the scnc is the legislation that enables that body the legislation that is currently before the House of Representatives economics Committee in understanding how we've gotten to that legation and certainly in understanding some of the issues that I'll raise in a moment it's really important to remember the origins of this reform so the productivity commission study into the contribution of the nonprofit sector which was chaired by Robert Fitzgerald and which reported in January 2010 really set the blueprint for a whole range of not for-profit reforms it picked up a long uh history of advocacy by the sector for a national regulator AOS and many other organizations had long called for a focused consistent regulatory framework that would support the activities of the non for-profit sector by reducing unnecessary duplication but at the same time ensuring that the regulation that takes place is effective our biggest criticism of the regulation today has always been that while there's a mass of regulatory burden it doesn't translate into the kind of information that we ought to know about this sector in terms of the industry profile in terms of organizations knowing where they sit across the landscape if not for profits and in terms of policy makers both government and non-government being able to understand the nature of this sector in terms of how it can um identify and meet social policy needs as well as a whole range of other needs around cultural sporting and other um areas of civil society life so the productivity commission was very clear in its recommendation that there should be a One-Stop shop for Commonwealth regulation by consolidating the various regulatory Frameworks across the country into a new National regist the product commission also recommended the um reform to monize the definition of charity by adopting a statutory definition of charitable purpose and it picked up the recommendations that were made in a 2001 inquiry the charity definition inquiry and definitions inquiry and related organizations not surprising it picked that out Robert Fitzgerald was a member of the 2001 inquiry but also not surprising it picked that up because those recommendations had also had a very broad level support across the community sector across not for-profits nationally and have been advocated for very many years by um people both within and an outside of government I frame those two recommendations to um give us a starting point for the discussion today but I think it's important to remember that the productivity commission study was Landmark for a whole range of recommendations that we are still working on and that we are still hoping will will emerge in other ways down the track and so important to remember that in addition to the regulator and the reform to modernize the definition of charity the PC recommended reducing compliance costs and improving Effectiveness a major issue in terms of the capacity of our Charities and not profits to do their work well it recommended establishing a standardized process as measurement and evaluation it recommended developing a sustainable market for financing of NF debt recognizing that the capacity to shore up non-government sources of funding for Community organizations requires a whole level of Engagement with Finance sector that not for-profits in Australia are very far from at the moment it recommended clear directions for stimulating innovation in our sector again recognizing that in order to succeed sometimes organizations need to be able to fail but as Community Services Charities are not for profits there's very little resourcing available to test to evaluate and to adopt or move away from directions within the sector and it recommended building sector cap capabilities to improve governance and enhance productivity so a whole raft of recommendations and that context is important because the ones that we focus on now and as you'll see the direction that those reforms have taken are actually a very particular direction away from the kind of discussion that the productivity commission was urging us to have about an effective a sustainable a viable not for-profit sector so productivity commission reports in 2010 the federal budget in May 2011 comes and with a series of announcements by the federal government government about its commitments to reforms in the Charities and not for-profits sector the first commitment was that it would establish the Australian Charities and not for-profits commission as the embodiment of the recommendation for a national regulator the second commitment was the reform to the use of tax concessions by businesses run by non for-profit organizations under the guise of ensuring a better targeting of the tax concession that are available to Charities and not for profits now um people in the room might know the know about these in terms of ubit unrelated business income tax or in relation to the in Australia test that has been um subject of a lot of policy development so those reforms come under the rubric of this second reform that the government committed and the third commitment was to introduce a statutory definition of charity specifically as the government said to address current outdated and uncertain definitional issues and to assist the sector through greater consistency in the aost submission to the productivity commission study we use that um piece of work as an opportunity to do a very broad National consultation around the kinds of issues that not the profits felt were important and the ways they should be picked up in terms of policy development on the specific question of a national regulator we were very clear about the objectives that we saw and the outcomes that we would like to um know were a part of the policy design for a national regulator so these included very clearly and specifically the reduction of red tape and the capacity building for the sector to ensure as I say that not only are organizations viable but that they're effective in their work now obviously from an acost perspective where the peak body for Charities and not for profits working with people experiencing poverty and inequality so the more time our members spend on reporting burdens and on red T the less time they're spending with their clients and the communities who rely on them but this is a message that cuts across the broad not for-profit sector it affects cultural organizations it affects sporting organizations it affects the vast range of organizations within the nonprofit sector who are mission driven who have a focus and um if they're Charities who generally have some form of altruistic purpose so the the capacity and the reduction of unnecessary and overly burdens some rent tape were really critical factors in the sector's advocacy for this National regulator we recognize that it should cover the entire scope of the non for-profit sector and as I've said that that cuts across many types of organizations and many activities but we also recognize that the levels of regulatory burden and the reporting requirements that those should bring ought to be different depending on size on turnover of staff on economic significance on a whole range of issues including on activity we were very clear that the sector's capacity to remain diverse to maintain a v a varied number of organizations across associations Incorporated across um volunteer based organizations was critical and perhaps the issue on which our own members and I think the non for-profit sector more broadly has been most unanimous in its advocacy was that the commission should be located independently from the Australian tax office this came again out of the 2001 charity definition inquiry it comes from a history of pretty fraud relationships between the not for-profit Center and the at it comes from the ato's own recognition that it is not and was never set up to be the regulator for Charities and not for profits but by virtue of its role administering tax concessions that it plays a very important role in the sector so um long history of two the advocacy to ensure an independent body and um and particularly that the at was never intended to be the place and should not be the place where the regulation of Charities and not theprivate sector organizations happens so I guess the question is why is this context important it's important because it sets the tone for the advocacy that Community organizations Charities and not for profits have engaged in over the past two years since governance commitments were made but it also allows us to understand how the advocacy of the sector and the policy Direction by government have um have sometimes intersected but have sometimes contradicted each other and that's a really critical issue when we come to understand what's happening currently in terms of the establishment of the Charities Commission in terms of the idea to modernize the definition of charity and in terms of the issues that Community organizations continue to raise as problems with the current policy definition uh policy Direction I think perhaps the most confusing issue for members of the sector has been the conflation of the tax reform agenda and the regulatory directions that were announced in I 19 2011 so the conflation of the establishment of the Charities commission the idea about moding modernizing the definition of charity and what that what value that will hold to the sector with reforms around the better targeting of tax positions the in test the is income test that's a that the charity and not the profit sector never sought it's a conflation that wasn't within our sights in terms of the objectives that we were we were seeking to achieve through these reforms and in terms of the directions that we thought government policy should take but if we go back to those commitments by the Commonwealth government in 2011 it's a Direction that's very clear from the framing of those reforms that the Regulatory and the tax reforms were always seen by the government as part of the same pastle were always is part of the direction that the the policy steer would take and so I think that's particularly important to bear in mind when we come to discussion about where the acnc is up to now and what are the issues that the sector is having to deal with as part of that reform so bringing us up to where we're up to with the acnc today an exposure drafted the legislation to establish the Charities commission was released by treasury in late 2011 it was made available publicly with around four to six weeks for um responses from the sector um notably across Christmas which is either a period of time off um end of view recovery or certainly for many acass members the peak period of time in terms of Demand on charities in terms of families meeting to do it incredibly tough very hard for the sector to get to grips with these issues and make informed policy recommendations that from our own perspective at the time of the exposure draft we had three any concerns with the legislation that was being proposed to set up the national regulat the first was an overreaching scope in the legislation moving well beyond what we regarded as relevant and appropriate principles of Regulation into a whole range of areas that we had not realized were up for for discussion within this reform and had not had the opportunity to do the kind of policy development and engagement across the sector that we need to be able to inform those directions there was a lack of clarity in the bill around the independence of both the commission and the commissioner key issues particularly because cabinet had decided when it agreed to establish this Charities commission to locate it with some shared back office function with the ATO now we regard that as an unfortunate decision but it was a decision made by cabinet it has never been after discussion since not withstanding that there will be some shared back office function with the ATO there are clearly mechanisms and safeguards that are available to ensure the commission Independence and the independence of the commissioner and her staff in the operations that they undertake but none of those safeguards were clear from the exposure draft that was first released last year and then finally we were incredibly concerned by what we regarded as a prescriptive tener in terms of the government's Arrangements that were proposed the government's arrangements are one of the most significant elements for not for profits because it's on the basis of Meeting those arrangements or in fact failing to comply with those arrangements that a whole range of the more pointy end um elements of the commission's regulation kick in so getting those government's Arrangements right making sure that they reflect the nature the diversity the activities of this sector is absolutely critical to making sure that it's a commission that works with and has the support of the sector and is able to function in terms of its its own appropriate regulation since that exposure draft there was um quite a well of submissions made there were some fairly unanimous points particularly around those three key issues that were raised by Community organizations and it was clear that there was a long way to go in terms of getting the legislation to a point where it had the agreement of the sector but also to a point where the interests that government was um cly pursuing within that legislation were understood and aligned with the kind of work that the subject it was able to do what that's meant in practice is that consultation since the exposure has been clearly limited to processes By Invitation Only referred to as targeted consultation but really focused on some very particular um processes already underway in terms of communication with the government um so you know by virtal of being involved in other processes some organizations have been able to stay involved in that process to date and certainly acos has been one of them but not with any capacity to relay the directions to our members or to the community sector more broadly much l to to the non for-profit sector more broadly not with any capacity to test drive the kinds of directions that are being proposed to understand their impact on a broad very diverse sector and to make well informed policy recommendations in response so where does that bring us the current status of the acnc is that the bill is currently before the House of Representatives economics committee and I think it's important to acknowledge some very successful advocacy by community and not for-profit organizations has achieved a significant outcome in allowing there to be a second phase of exposure to the legislation that has that will establish the Charities commission it was incredibly important to ensure that this much broader sector be able to understand and engage with the legislation that will establish its its first ever National Charities regulator the acnc is scheduled to open its doors on the 1st of October this year but in order to do so the legislation that will enable it needs to be passed in the coming sitting periods of of federal Parliament so that's several weeks in August and in September so that brings us up to speed in terms of where the ACMC is up to now I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce to you Susan Pasco who many of you will know Susan Pasco is the interim commissioner for the acnc and will take up the mental and opens its doors Susan has worked timelessly with her team to um to ensure that the implementation of thec is done in a way that is incredibly acknowledging of the work that the sector has already done towards this and engages with the sector around its both its implementation and its establishment once up and running the acnc implementation task force has at all times recognized the importance of its independence and has managed a very difficult and sometimes very fra process of um on the one hand being ruen by a government policy process but on the other hand recognizing the role and the value of an independent regulator I think it's important to recognize before Susan joins us that it's not Susan's team that have made the policy decisions or led the directions that I've referred to in the reform so far and what I'd like to do is invite Susan to talk to you about what the acnc means for organizations once it opens doors give you a bit of a sense of what the expectations will be on the sector and where we think the acnc will be hting and then come back to the question about the legislation that's currently before Parliament what it means for the sector and what we think might be some of the next steps in terms of advocacy and and directions for not organiz [Applause] well good morning and it's good to be in the right venue Mar B and I did start at 800 boo stre which wasn't where we were meant to be uh and if I could introduce Marie uh who is the assistant commissioner and general counsel for the Australian chares are not commission and would be known to many of you um if you've worked uh in and around the the legal matters associated with Charities as he former in laws legal now uh the presentation I'm going to do today uh is very much drawn from the uh requests from Tessa as to where the issues were for people uh so it's an attempt in anticipation if you like of the the issues that you might have to answer them for you but of course uh the uh will be here and uh very happy to answer any queries you've got all to hear any comments that youve got including throughout by the way it is it matter is UN clear now uh I'll begin with a quote from an address that David Brad Brey assistant Treasurer gave on the 17th of May where um he announced that the uh passage of the legislation would happen in in this way and that is that the governance standards and the financial reporting would be withdrawn from the bill as it was then and subject to further consultation uh so that the bill that's going forward as Tessa mentioned is with the house of reps economics uh committee at the moment um is the bill that will establish uh the acnc um and including the the scope of its powers but in particular given that one of the key functions is registration enable it um when it opens its doors to begin that function um so the the intention of the government is that the uh acnc will still open its doors on the 1st of October some of you would know that that's already um three months later than was originally intended it was intended to be the 1st of July but in early March the government announced that there would be an additional 3 months consultation on the bill as it was then so you can see uh We've now got a second phase of consultation on the um outstanding contentious elements in the bill what it means of course is that um the those elements such as the government standards which will be the subject of further consultation coordinated by treasury but the financial reporting of the acnc task force uh will be very actively involved in uh working with the sector to try and get um strong financial reporting requirements in place uh bearing in mind the commitment to rede reduction so what has happened to the timeline um as a result of the um 17th of May announcement is that it's expected still that on the 1st of October that the acnc uh will be ready to open its doors um by uh around you if you look across the timeline the um 1st of July 2013 you've got two boxes on either side of that date the financial reporting and the governance regulations would come into effect as well as the new statutory definition of charity I'm going to come back to that but in effect what it means is that um for the first year of reporting there will be no financial reporting there will be a modified annual information statement which is a two-page report um that all Charities would provide uh and only after that for the reporting period that begins the 1 of July 2014 but includes period from the 1st of July 2013 then for the medium and larger Charities the financial reporting requirements would come into play it is I'll say in parenthesis worth noting that the for those of you who've had a chance to look at the bill um it has medium small medium and large Charities defin small under 20 250,000 um and and medium up to million and large million and Beyond um that has been subject of quite a bit of discussion in the consultations that we've had uh so it will be interesting to see whether there's pressure to modify uh and most of the discussion is that they ought to be uh adjusted upwards those levels uh whether there's pressure to adjust them uh we shall see that's part of the the process of having it before the house of GS um economics committee and of course if you see under the line on July the the 1st 2013 um there is 6 months to get your first report in um and that so that would take you to the 31st of December um so there's a fair amount of uh leeway if you like go out to get your reporting done and as I mentioned it's not till the 1st of July 2014 that the for the medium and large Charities that their reports are due but I will return to these matters because I know it's a bit complex so I'm going to just quickly uh mention some of the key Concepts and then come back to the questions um that I was asked to address the idea of the onstop shop is that um for different groups it'll have a different impact for the public it means for the first time that they can go to one spot uh and they can get information on Charities and learn about the sector now if they want to learn about a charity they've got to go to a host of different websites um to get that information so that um would be one I think for the public dramatic and significant red take reduction we often think of red take reduction in relation to government and those Enterprises that deal with that government for the public it's also quite important for the funders and donors there will be Baseline information on the financial and governance Arrangements of Charities and so that'll all be Consolidated in a single spot but the Charities themselves rather than have to go to four different sites um they can apply for registration uh they can apply through this portal to get their Australian business number we would just link them to the Australian business register they can apply for their Commonwealth tax concessions and we would link them straight to the Australian taxation office um and there's the potential for a number of other uh linkages that we can make so for example if the states and territories agree to be part of this and then discussions are well underway um then they we could also pass on that charity to the relevant state revenue office and they can apply um any concessions State based or territory based concessions for which The Entity would be eligible so you can see that there's um if you like a a single point of reference that ought to make it a lot easier for Charities and so when we start to think about it in terms of red tape reduction these are some of the measures um that would assist reporting as we know is a significant other measure with the report ones use often there's really three elements to think about there and by the way we're very happy to provide this um electronically uh if people want copies the idea of a charity passport is largely within government but um what it means is that the information that you provide at the point of registration or through your annual information statement which is really just an update largely on um your activities or any changes to Key Personnel um we would use that to uh group together the core information the government uses when it leases with with any Enterprises really but we're talking about Charities and and not for profits uh there's been an exercise across the Commonwealth where the Departments have been asked if you're funding an agency either through a grant or through a service agreement what's the core information that you you pretty much always ask for and it comes down to about 15 items that can be electronically corraled um and then once we have it uh we can provide it instantaneously to any government department and once we have it they are not supposed or allowed to ask you again for it we've got it all they do is is is um give us your ABM or your um your legal name and we we transfer it across the techn technology exists that they can to identify or for V forms that mean that when that information's passed across it can populate their forms automatically so the technology is there to make all of this happen very smoothly so that you don't constantly have to provide the same information to government including your government's Arrangements which you give us at the point of registration they'll be there so uh when you deal with government you just give your ADN or you just give your legal name and that's it so that is for those of you who do uh a lot of Grant making or involved in a lot of service agreement that also ought to be a significant um reduction in the administration of the red tape with the annual information statement the intention there is that uh particularly once we've got your registration details verified that that'll keep the site up to date so that when people visit the site um they they know uh they're confident that it's accurate information and I think for the acnc um the fact for The credibility of the site um that once it's a registered charity it's a charity that the public and donors and yourselves can be confident that the data is verified um and so and it's up to date and so that's quite important so you'll note in the act that there are requirements that you keep up to date uh for the larger Charities within 28 days of a change of um you know your Governors or um or for the small Charities within 60 days that kind of thing it will change to your you know significant change to your activities that you kept up to date and so on and for the financial reports as I mentioned that's for the medium and large Charities um and that'll differ uh from charity type to charity type and what I mean by that when I said that the government in the minister on the 17th of May when he gave the additional time we're using that time to work with the Commonwealth departments and go through um and identify if you're a school or a hospital or a employment provider or an age care provider what do you currently provide to government what's asked for from the um acnc where's the duplication how can we rationalize uh and we want to take it a step further but also be saying is the information that you're requiring absolutely necessary how do you use it so the that's the opportunity that we get for red tape production and we know it's government policy um but we also know that um there's a long history of of creep in this area no so go back go back to the question so what do you need to know or do on on the 1 of October and the reality is if you are an existing uh charity that's um registered with the atto the short answer is nothing really unless you're a religious body so if you want to opt out um then there's a means of doing it and uh I won't read through all of that but you can see um that that it's it's a pretty easy process you fill out a form you might decide look with this CNC like I'm just not interested in being a registered charity um I'm going to operate in a different way as you can see from the last phrase there you would lose access to your tax concessions if you did that so um I suspect not too many will but still some work May uh religious institutions um which are self assessing um as income tax exempt um they will need to notify us uh and again they they'll have 12 months to do so so so uh they the the two steps that would need to be taken bearing in mind that it's not until the statutary definition of charity is activated on the 1st of July 2013 that we can begin to then look again at those existing Charities that the a atto has recognized and assess their ongoing charitable status um it's not expected that um there' be much change at all the change that's expected to come from that would be if there's um a charity that's actually morban and and this has happened with other charity Regulators in fact there are people on the list that have ceased to operate or there's an Enterprise that's still designated as a charity but in fact has changed its purposes so dramatically that in effect it wouldn't satisfy charitable purposes any longer but they're typically the two reasons so communicating um with the acnc at that point um and this is and in an ongoing way um if you have changes such as you change your name or address or office bearers or you want to change your governing rules um you need to notice bias or else you wouldn't be compliant with the act so that that would be in an ongoing way and that's similar for any of you who companies limited by guarantee to your um requirements with ASC so what do you need to know and do on the 1st of July 2013 um and you know we have we had a glimpse of that when we looked at the uh timeline um so from then you'll need to be providing the annual information statement but you do get to the 31st of December um before it's due you will note that there is also uh the ability for people to have a substituted accounting period and we know we know that there's whole classes of Charities like schools that operate on a calendar year and so they would um simply request a different accounting period and then their reports would be 6 months after if you're a school it would be 6 months after the 31st of December and from the for the medium and large um registered Charities as I mentioned your reports would be due um by the will in fact by the 31st of December but for the reporting period the 1st of July um 2014 and again they should have a substituted accounting period okay this is um what our website is going to be uh in the future from the 1st of July 2013 and uh this is a mockup of what it's likely to look like um but I hope you can see the intention is to have it as as interactive as possible um to have information for the public uh and those who are interested in how to find a charity but new Charities and that'll take you through what you need to do um to go through the registration process for existing Charities particularly uh what you need to do um now and that'll be very important we think for the 1 of October particularly because we know there's some nervousness from people who think they should be doing something um and they're not and it's it's in some ways it's a strange message to be told you don't need to do anything it seems counterintuitive um but uh that's where they sit at the moment and so Publications about the acnc and so on and we'll keep a live um count on the number of ch ities the ATO has 56,000 on its books um that you see in the left hand corner there that's actually the number from the New Zealand charity commission uh but but we would keep a pretty live count what's interesting when you look at charity commissions um in english- speaking countries uh almost all of them have roughly the same number register as voluntarily D register each year so in Australia it's it varies between 4 and 6,000 each year register and and D register so I think once we've uh cleared those that are no longer operational from that 56,000 that will be handed on the 1st of October then we expect it to remain a pretty static number so when you're registering um it's it's a dynamic online form that's not just a bit of um you know advertising speak it means that it's actually interactive it'll have information buttons that you can press it'll also be one of those frustrating forms that if you haven't filled in the section that you've just left it'll tell you to go back and do it properly um before you go on the next section and so on um so that we can get the information to assess your eligibility to be registered um we can display the information on the public portal and we have the information that the tax office needs to uh apply the tax concessions um so from the 1 of October on our register so this this year we'll simply have for each charity its name it's ABN the state in which it's uh registered and the link to the Australian business register and there's a little bit as you know a little bit more information there we are unable to provide any more information than that until we can verify the information and even though some of you would have got a you should have all in fact got a letter from the tax office asking did you want to update your information um it's not really the acn's information we will receive much of that from the tax office but from the 1st of July next year will begin the process of verification so the register itself it'll look something like this where um a member of the public can go in put in either an ABN if they know it or the business name um and then search over time when there's enough information uh and if we're talking probably 2015 uh then you'll be able to make comparative searches you would appreciate if we're not going to get uh be in a position to begin reassessing charitable status until the 1st of July next year and there's 56,000 that's going to be quite a time consuming exercise so we don't imagine um that that's going to be done uh within 12 months we think it'll take longer in the meantime of course we'll be getting the annual information statements in so we'll be getting uh information that the Charities have um uh themselves put forward as as valid and true and that'll be giving us information to start putting on the the portal uh so it it'll take time to build but I think most people would understand that so um from the 1 of October 2013 12 months after the starting date there will be additional information such as contact details the charitable purposes and so on you can read them for yourselves um but you can see that uh when I refer back to the government holding information about you and not needing to ask again in I think you can see uh the information that government is often asking from you um such as your governing rules uh it'll all be there uh on the website and including from 2014 um your financial reports now you may want to put other information on um even if a charity wants to load up a PDF of their latest annual information sorry annual report they're welcome um to do so uh I don't think we can become the uh the full kind of advertising portal for Charities but if Charities want to um actively promote their their charitable activity uh you know within the limits of the site um that's uh very welcome um so activities and beneficiaries uh all locations of operations annual reports data about the charity individually and collectively and so on we we imagine that this will be a particular benefit to the smaller Charities that don't really have the facility to to manage their own sites and they will be able to refer people um to this site now in terms of the approach to education guidance and compliance they we see them very much interrelated as a a part of a regulatory approach so there is the legislation many of you will have had the chance um to read it um all 260 pages I think of the explanatory memorandum as as well as the bill um but you would see that there are um some significant Powers within the bill if if you look at the way that charity Regulators in other places operate and certainly the way that we have committed to operate they're very rarely used they're there for those extreme cases um of deliberate wrongdoing which can happen uh in any human Enterprise really so we're talking cases of fraud of money laundering um or indeed um the use of a charity to finance um terrorist activity it's those kind of very serious activities for which the powers are there um the way that the uh acnc intends to operate is to provide sufficient information and advice um that Charities understand what's required it's also intended to keep it to a minimum to only ask for information that really is needed and also to feedback as as much as we can um to put that information on the register and you'll see in the act that one of the requirements apart from registering is to maintain the register so that it's there it's up to date uh for people uh who want to obtain that information it's this this important part of our role to assist Charities to meet their obligations um but of course if there are serious breaches um to investigate those we do anticipate if we have a similar start to other charity Regulators that there might be a flurry of complaints um that there would there will be some who are holding um existing concerns that they have uh for the regulator we don't intend to get into um dispute resolution that relates to um you know personality differences between members of governing boards or all that kind of thing but if there are um serious allegations then yes we will pursue them and of course you would see that one of the uh objects of the ACT is to maintain protect and enhance public trust and confidence in the sector so the guidance is tended to be in plain practical language um there's uh an advice Services uh there's a phone advisory service which will operate from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. um or you can email when you approach us you will get a name um and you and when you uh phone in or email in you will know who you can respond to you can go back to that person so the intention is to keep it um as personal as possible because we are conscious that many of the people will be dealing with are volunteers but there is a fairly High rate of turnover of volunteers um and that it's important that people uh know that they can go to you know Freddy Smith or whoever it might be for the advice and that Freddy Smith knows a little bit about them so the education and guidance um this is giving you a bit of an idea of what the website uh will look like um starting and registering a charity is your organization of Charity and not every you know like it's it's interesting people in the Pro sector not always clear about whether it's a charity and death or whether it needs to be um uh taking close attention to these um initiatives at this stage um the acn's role what the reporting obligations are and then how to update your organization's details so it's um you know trying to be I suppose as as clear and helpful as possible now just looking at the regulatory approach and I'm nearly done here um the intention that we have is to keep it as light touch as possible risk based um and we know that Charities are in fact quite a low risk uh bearing in mind that very rare opportun example of of those that misuse Charities uh and to use it as as evidence-based the intention is to have timely accessible information guidance and education and that's one of the reasons that we're going to be using the website a lot we've even got ourselves a Twitter account which for those of my generation uh is a fairly new initiative um and we're about to update the YouTube channel um which we haven't refreshed for a while but we're trying to use as many modalities as possible so that people who are working in the sector who are time poor um can uh log on when it suits them I think the next dot point is very important in terms of the regulatory approach if you look at the ACT there are graduated Powers there are uh a host of formal means that can be used from um the is of of of the requiring of information the issuing of warnings and so on um and the opportunity for self-correction prior to that we would have every intention of sending out reminders and alerts uh and keeping people informed um and no one uh is interested in uh smacking Charities because they you know didn't get their form in on time or whatever um so we don't uh have any intention of operating in that legal uh legalistic frame we have every intention of working with and assisting the sector I think there's quite an interesting parallel in the work of the office of the regist of indigenous corporations oric and some of you might be familiar with its activities but they have a 92% return rate you know on time uh you know accurately uh filled for their annual returns um but they Pro provide a very high rate of support and guidance and advice um to that that sector which is like indigenous corporations our regulatory principles are a fairly common Set uh but you know and again we we intend as you can see to go out and consult on these but relevance we want ask information that's relevant that's proportionate very important consistent transparent And Timely and we once the legislation is through we intend to consult uh with the sector on uh other aspects of the regulatory approach we've developed a regulatory period PID which is pretty common in this area we intend to go out and um consult on that and the other aspects of the way we interact with the sector and there's the pyramid um notice has got education and support at the bottom some people have suggested that we um invert the pyramid because most of your activity in fact um is happening at the bottom level education and support I think it depends on whether you read up or you read down whether you see this is the right way um but it's starts with that the assisted compliance which is letters phone calls site visits and so on then the proactive which is the more formal um investigation responding to complaints um using the powers if we need to collect information then the graduate and proportionate sanctions so that'll be warnings and so on and then uh there is power to suspend or remove trustees except from what are called basic charitable sorry religious institutions um and of course the power to deregister uh if you look at the use of these powers in other places as I said very sparingly used mind you part from New Zealand where the only Power they had is to read D register and uh in apparently for the Charities it's a whole H I've been deregistered I'll just go and get myself re-registered um but the way that the acnc bill has been enacted there's a lot more um uh powers in there so that you can have a graduated approach so um this is is one of the issues that people wanted to here about was the difference between the One-Stop shop reports um and the information on the portal um and there's a degree to which um they significantly overlap uh the commissioner is to uh maintain the the Charities not for profits commission register um I'm still getting used to that acronym but anyway that's how it is uh and so section um 40 um five in the ACT details the information to be provided publicly so if you're interested um the acts available and you can see most of it I'm giv you in the slides today but that's the kind of information that will be there on the portal uh but the commissioner does have the power to withhold or remove information from the register in certain circumstances and Charities can request this so for example um this is the example that's often given if you're a women's Refuge um and even putting your name or your address um could put the the health and safety of of some of your um clients at risk then you've got a very strong case for not having any information on the register um so the ACT um asks the commissioner to balance the public interest um and of course part of the public interest in the ACT is is is the promotion of transparency accountability um with other relevant factors and that's it um from me that was an attempt really to run through and give you the the key issues of interest thank you very much Susan I'm um very grateful to you for the time that you've made to participate not just in this briefing but in a whole range of opportunities like this for the sector to come together and hear what's happening and understand better what the implications are for sector organizations and really come to gits with the ra ra of reforms that are before us so um thank you for joining us today and for that ongoing role that you've really prioritized and emphasized in your work so what I wanted to do was to give you a flavor of the the opportunities and the directions that the acnc itself is taking which certainly from our reading are incredibly exciting and are the kinds of things that we absolutely want to see available for the nonprofit sector nationally but I do now want to return to the legislation which is where I I paused on before Susan um DAV us a presentation because that's the that's the um part of the policy reform work that is most um present and most current and is really the issue that from from an acost perspective is where we need to come back to the sector and really take a bit of a pulse and um do some of this work around around engagement with our own members and colleagues in the sector we find ourselves in a pretty difficult position where on the one hand this is a reform that we have long championed this is the the work of the implementation task force the work of the commission is work that we would very much like to welcome and on the other hand we need to be confident that the legislation that underpins that has the kinds of mechanisms but also the kinds of safeguards that the sector can rely upon no matter who's at the helm and that's both at the Helm of the acnc but also at the helm of government in terms of the kinds of policy changes that might affect sector capacity and sector viability and so when we think think about the legislation from that perspective there are some issues that we continue to have some concerns about but there's also quite a golf between the knowledge and the understanding of the contents of the legislation for that very small number of organizations which as you'll remember I said have been able to stay involved in the policy development process until now and the much broader sector for whom all of this is something that organizations have been aware of but not necessarily something that um that they acoss the detail po so um in terms of the legislation as it currently stands many organizations have made submissions to the House of Representatives economics committee those submissions were due last Friday and we understand that there will be hearings or some form of process of Engagement with the committee in fact this week um the committee is obviously going through those submissions almost as quickly as the sector had to write them um so stand by for where that gets to the House of Representatives economics committee is a standing committee um it submissions should be available on the website and anos has made a submission as I say along with many other organizations so um keep an eye out for those if you'd like to get to the detail of um the sorts of issues that people are raising but the sorts of issues that people are raising and how we resolve those from a policy perspective and in terms of enabling the acnc to be up and running are not easy questions and the answers are not clear and so some of the issues that example I've flagged here are partly to do with this gulf of understanding that we are expecting between what the acnc can do what it has said it wants to do and what the sector wanted it to do in 20110 and in the years before in terms of the advocacy that got us to this point so some of the issues on this list for instance the independence of the ACMC are issues that have had a huge amount of work particularly over the last eight months particularly as I say by Susan and her team but are not issues that are necessarily clear from a reading of the legislation so the the sector needs to have confidence in the processes that are going to be embedded in the establishment of this commission without necessarily being able to turn to the provision of the bill where those are set out I think the question about the reduction of red tape the um reform framework in which this reform um was introduced was very much one about the reduction of red tape it's a reform agenda that the government has been running with the business Community it's a reform agenda that not for-profits have been very strongly advocating within our own sector and yet um the capacity for the reduction of red tape requires a whole lot of steps that are not necessarily within the control either of the federal government at the moment or of the Charities commission itself and the clearest example there is the um capacity and the the willingness of state and territory Regulators to refer powers to the AC to make it a truly National body now we know very well that both the government and the acnc itself have been working with States and territories around those processes those are absolutely in train but again there isn't a provision within the legislation that you can necessarily turn to to be confident about that and so making sure that this commission continues to have that role serve that function and take that direction into the future is something that we would like to see within the legislation I think the third Point relates to the language that you that is used in the legislation one of our recommendations is that we use some of the language that the sector itself is most comfortable with for instance governing bodies rather than a a much more legal term like entities that actually applies to all sorts of different positions at all all different times in the bill so making sure that this is legislation that the sector is able to understand feels comfortable with are all really important parts of ensuring the sector's engagement with the commission and of course a sector that's engaged with its own regulator is a sector that will be far better regulated so the the bottom line is making sure that this is a process and a reform that achieves the outcomes that it's intended to um definition of charity will come back to um after morning T but I guess the the key point to flare here is that the um powers of the acnc and indeed the other reforms that are underway in relation to the administration of tax concessions all flow from our understanding of what constitutes a charity so we've had the establishment of the scnc and we've had reforms underway in other areas that flow from a definition of charity that is yet to be reformed that is yet to be modernized assuming that that reform actually takes place so there's a basic question about sequencing in terms of how these reforms have rolled out that has not made it easy for the charity and not for-profit sector to be engaged with and understand implications of each element of the reform process so again that's not an issue that's limited to the ACMC but it's very relevant to what the acnc will do and it's particularly pertinent to organizations trying to understand what the implications will be of this new regulatory framework for their own organization um governance standards are probably one of the areas that's been most controversial in the development of the legislation and the upshot of that controversy has been that the government standards have actually been removed from the legislation um which is all well and good in that it was they were removed with the intention of giving the sector greater capacity to be involved in the development of those standards and great a time for consultation and and work towards them but again what it means is that we have a piece of legislation that is based on enforcing compliance and taking action in some cases where there's non-compliance with a set of standards that we don't yet have with a set of expectations around the government of Charities and not for-profit organizations that we're not yet clear on in terms of in terms of what they will actually require of organizations our solution to that in the submissions we've made has been to require very clear consultation with the sector in the development of those government stes but not surprisingly there's some une across the sector about a reform that requires um compliance with a regime or a set of Arrangements on which we have no detail as yet there's some other areas of the bill that raise concerns there are a couple of exemptions that are flaged in the legislation although not necessarily with a clear policy framework and then there's a whole range of elements in terms of the actions that the acnc can take that um are certainly severe and while there will undoubtedly be severe action required the question is at what point the question is what are the thresholds at which penalties may be enacted what are the um options and opportunities for the organization question to respond to and deal with the concerns before penalties are leveraged and one of the implications of some of the procedures that the bill requires particularly in chance of opportunity for appeal and for review of decision making so those are the kinds of issues that we still have some concerns about in terms of the bill and those are the sorts of issues that we've dealt with in our submission having said that we absolutely want a national regulator we absolutely want the capacity for the kind of work that Susan's talked about and the kinds of objectives that I flagged at the start of this presentation to be achieved through this reform we see it as a once- in a generation opportunity I I mentioned that some of this advocacy goes back at least until 2001 and policy development before it we see the Gathering of an excellent group of people in terms of the um Workforce at the acnc and the workforce of the sector being able to work collaborative over the directions that the acnc might take and we see a recognition within government as well as within um Regulators nationally to make improvements in the kinds of objectives around reduction of red tape and um sector viability and Effectiveness but also transparency of this sector that we would like to be able to um to point to and to talk about we expect high levels of good governance and accountability by other sectors by business by private sectors we absolutely should be held accountable to those same standards ourselves but the question is always how and the question is always how to make sure that that happens with the full engagement and support of the sector supporting its capacity not undermining it