Australia: Not for Profit Reform

The Assistant Treasurer for Australia has released the first Not-for-Profit Reform Newsletter.

Highlights:

• NFP regulator to be in place by 1 July 2012.
• A statutory definition of "charity" will apply from 1 July 2013.
• Timetable for consultations and draft legislation

http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/2189/PDF/NFP_newsletter_Issue_1.PDF (pdf)

How very interesting.

Page 2:

page 3:

ruh roh lol

Wonder how this would affect another one of Australia's most notorious religious organizations...the organism with slimy tentacles known as "Hillsong"?

"statutory definition of charity"

Might it be, flooding a disaster zone with pamphlets purchased by members at an inflated rate?
Sending in "drug counsellors" with no legitimate training to flog a dangerous programme of quackery and junk science?
Literacy campaigns that are covert recruitment tools?
Using disaster to spread your beliefs and gain material for your PR mill?
Setting up covert groups to address things you're violating, like human rights?

I'll go look it up in my Funk n' Wagnall's.

The cult is going down, down under.

Keep an eye on those grandfather clauses.

Do we know anything about this grandfather?

Grandpa Santa Claus.

Good call to watch out for Scientology trying to sneak by with a Grandfather Clause.

"We're a real religion since 1952!"

This point of whether being a religion automatically implies tax exemption was raised in the Senate Inquiry between Scientology's bespectacled Ms McBride and Senator Xenophon. The upshot was that it does not.

Sounds good.

The reform does not explicitly target Scientology as it is a general reform. It could have quite an impact on a number of cults and fake charities. I know someone who worked in charity regulation in Australia and their was a general consensus that although many charities benefited themselves more than the community, investigation into the many bad charities could damage legitimate trust people place in the honest ones.

So the decision of whom should be affected, and how much they should be affected is quite a political decision as it always has been. My suspicion is that Scientology will be affected and that in order to be fair they should target similar organizations. The problem is that some of these similar organizations have given money to the two major political parties (such as the exclusive brethren). I am not sure if Hillsong will be able to duck this somehow using political means. I hope not.

Does that mean it is rising? Is this the expansion Tommy Davis speaks of?

I think the trust people have in the many excellent charities will be enhanced.
Having a charities commission and some transparency will enhance the legitimate trust in the system of tax exemptions that are granted to groups that legitimately benefit the community and their members.

Trust has to be earned, and can be lost overnight. Ask the United Way in the US, whose chief administrator played fast and loose in the early 90s, got busted and replaced. United Way donations plummeted for years.

Or the Red Cross, another huge and legitimate organization. They took millions in donations meant for 911 victims and tried to hoard it. They did the same thing here in San Diego after terrible wildfires. Following that, they replaced the scraggy old bitch at the top here, who was slurping up over $300,000 a year of Red Cross money; the highest paid Red Cross administrator in the US. When the Cedar Fires occurred, the county was flooded with millions of dollars in donations. The Red Cross only scraped up $60,000.

This is what happens when trust is lost. It can take years to regain it. But I don't see how investigating fraudulent "charities" could have any impact on a charity that is above board, honest, and law-abiding.

Hopefully bilking members of CO$ of their money, running concentration camps and brainwashing the population will not translate into "charity" .
Perhaps we in US should also define what charity means and who should get non-profit status and who should be deprived of it.
A revision of CO$ "charitable" actions in many countries should start here and now.
Stay safe.
BK

^^^ wonk

I hear where they're coming from, but that's the kind of argument that used to be used to justify covering up child abuse by priests. The truth does come out eventually, and leadership who colluded in the coverup are shown to be untrustworthy. People trust someone who sees problems and deals with them openly. People will trust charities that are comfortable with transparency and question those who are not.

We Know he's very Clean

Expecting Scientology to claim that they are above board, honest, and law-abiding. And a real religion since 1952. Don't tax me bro.

and proud of it!

Sometimes he's Dirty.

'arold?! Bring me my cocoa!

I agree with your argument that covering up bad charities is similar the coverup of child abuse and I certainly don't agree with the philosophy that covering up bad charities or child abuse is for the best. Unfortunately, with some charities, the truth doesn't come out. It certainly hasn't yet. I certainly hope that this transparency ends this, but I am skeptical that all abusive cults will be treated as harshly as each other.

Even real charities need oversight by government and the press to watch out for scams, especially in fund-raising where the charity gets pennies on the dollar.
Star gets action: Oshawa hospital charity fires boss, calls in the cops

http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/Di...011/143.htm&pageID=003&min=brs&Year=&DocType=

Acrobat (PDF)

Consultation Paper - A Definition of Charity 991.39kb
Fact Sheet - A Definition of Charity 193.81kb


Microsoft Word (RTF)

Consultation Paper - A Definition of Charity 2,240.29kb
Fact Sheet - A Definition of Charity 8,464.87kb

ie. Wonks could bookmark this page: http://www.treasury.gov.au/content/not_for_profit.asp?ContentID=2188&titl=Not-for-profit Reform

slowpoke, but here is Anglicare (real charity) responding to the ANCN

* bump *

That was refreshing - it helped wash off some of the Co$ 'stoopid'.

http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00297534.htm

Cool!

Here's a direct link to their youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/acnctaskforce

Australians doing it right again! Open process is open!

Is there a date connected with this flyer?

It's new, this month.

"CULTS ARE THE COST OF OPEN SOCIETY": http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/11/15/3366349.htm

Ah, one of those scholars.

• Brainwashed! Scholars of cults accuse each other of bad faith December 1, 1998, Charlotte Allen, Lingua Franca

In 1979, he wrote one of those Scientology-is-a-religion essays that Scientology paid for.

Gary Bouma
http://arts.monash.edu.au/sociology/staff/gbouma.php