Senate scuttles Coalition crackdown on charity advocacy work
The Senate has disallowed rules cracking down on charities’ advocacy work, a major defeat for the government in the penultimate sitting week of the year.
On Thursday afternoon Labor, the Greens and crossbench combined to support a disallowance moved by independent senator, Rex Patrick. One Nation joined the push despite fears they were set to green light powers to investigate and deregister charities.
Charities’ advocacy will be further debated in the Senate when the government’s political campaigner bill is considered next week.
That bill aims to lower the threshold for disclosure of political spending from $500,000 to $100,000. The government has alarmed the charities sector with a flurry of late amendments expanding its retrospective effect and reach to include Voices groups raising money for independents.
The charities regulations would have allowed the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission to investigate and deregister charities and not-for-profits for engaging in or promoting a range of minor offences.
The sector has warned that the changes would threaten entire organisations with deregistration on the mere suspicion of a minor offence – trespass or harassment, for example – and would restrict their ability to engage in protests.
The government had ignored the recommendations of a Liberal-led committee that found broad new powers for the regulator would threaten free speech and should be scrapped.
News Corp Australia reported on Monday that One Nation, previously undecided on the changes, had struck a deal with the government to support the powers against challenge on the proviso that it better shield churches from the changes.
But on Thursday afternoon the Senate voted 24 votes to 19 to scrap the powers, with senators Stirling Griff and Jacqui Lambie voting with Patrick, Labor and the Greens to reject them.
One Nation’s two senators were not present for the vote, but were paired to vote with Labor and the crossbench, reducing the government’s tally of votes by two.
Patrick told Guardian Australia: “It’s been a long week but in one of the last votes for the Senate, it has done a fantastic service to the charities sector. I thank the Senate.”
Anglicare Australia director, Kasy Chambers, said the vote “is not just a win for charities and the people we serve, it is a win for democracy”.
“If they had been allowed to stand, the rules would have meant that charities could be targeted and shut down for subjective reasons,” she said.
“They were designed to stop organisations like Anglicare Australia from speaking up for our communities by punishing us.
“This vote means we can continue speaking up for those who don’t have a voice in public debate.”
Human Rights Law Centre’s Alice Drury said: “This is an important win for human rights and for charities across Australia at a time when their advocacy is more important than ever.”
Drury accused the government of attempting to silence charities with a “strategy of death by a thousand cuts” in relation to ACNC powers and the political campaigners bill subjecting them to “even more red tape”.
On Monday the House of Representatives passed the government’s political campaigner bill, which is listed for debate in the Senate but unlikely to be voted on until next week.
On Wednesday and Thursday the government rejected calls for the bill to be examined by a Senate committee, despite a flurry of amendments on Monday the crossbench argued needed further scrutiny.
The changes broaden the definition of “electoral matter” requiring political campaigners to declare any spending “in relation to an election”, a broad definition that charities and not-for-profits fear will exaggerate their attempts to influence voters.
The amendments also broaden the definition of political campaigners to organisations that operate for the dominant purpose of fundraising for electoral expenditure –a move some fear are directed at grassroots fundraising organisations like the Voices for independents.
An alliance of 80 charities, Hands Off Our Charities, has written to senators urging them to oppose the changes as “the latest of a long line of government attempts to silence civil society voices speaking”.
They said the category of political campaigner “conflates independent, issue-based advocacy with ‘party-political’ or partisan campaigning”.
Charities are not permitted to be
politically
partisan, and may only engage in advocacy in support of a charitable purpose.
“Yet the label of ‘political campaigner’ gives the misleading impression that charities are spending money on partisan activities during election periods – which raises significant reputational and regulatory risks for us,” they said.