Andrews leads fight to abolish charities commission

There are two groups that want the charities regulator and its oversights scuppered: the financial services industry and the Catholic Church. They have a friend in the government. DEAD PEOPLE are very important to Australian charities. From beyond the grave, through the trustees of their estates, they give tens and probably hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable causes every year. Exactly how much they give is hard to say, for reasons that will become obvious later. We can say, however, that dead people account for most of the 2100-odd charitable trusts or foundations that exist in Australia, which hold total assets of about $3.2 billion. Being dead, these people cannot have any strongly held views on the subject of the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission (ACNC), set up less than 18 months ago by the federal government to regulate the charitable sector. But the private companies that administer those charitable trusts do have strongly held views on the ACNC. They hate it… Read the full article Photo: Andrew Jeffre