Bill Browne 
Director, Democracy & Accountability Program

I’m writing from the National Press Club, where Assistant Minister for Charities Andrew Leigh (Labor MP) and Shadow Assistant Minister for Charities Dean Smith (Liberal Senator) are discussing the charities sector. (It is very pointedly not a “debate”.) 

As the Press Club description notes, “Charities employ over 1.4 million Australians and contribute over 8% to our GDP. Beyond their economic impact, charities and community organisation are at the heart of our communities, our connectedness, our wellbeing and resilience.” 

Australia Institute research finds that the charity sector is about as large as Australia’s retail sector or its education and training sector. Charities employ many times more Australians than the fossil fuel industry does.   

But despite its size and importance, the charity sector is neglected and mistreated by politicians.  

Charity advocacy is muzzled indirectly, including by the threat of withdrawing funding, and directly, including through legal pressure like non-disclosure agreements.  

When the Labor and Liberal parties did a deal to change election laws earlier this year, they made it very difficult for charities to continue to advocate for political reform. But for-profit corporations got special treatment: the political parties scrambled to provide business lobby groups with a higher donation cap to allow them to continue to run multi-million-dollar political campaigns.  

These restrictions on charities are on top of earlier limits on charity advocacy passed during the Morrison Government with the support of the Labor Party. At the time, Andrew Leigh promised to “revisit this framework” in government – which did not happen.