I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people where I am recording this and the Wurundjeri people where you are meeting, and pay respects to all First Nations people present, as well as the many charities that work to close the gap.
One of the best books I’ve read this year is Nicholas Epley’s A Little More Social, which argues that most of us would be happier and healthier if we connected with people more often. Drawing on decades of research in social psychology, he makes a powerful case that we should have more conversations with strangers and deeper chats with friends.
Some of that is about individual actions, but it’s also about institutions. A society with thriving charities is one that provides more chances for us to be a little more social. Community groups are essential to building community, and good governance in the charity sector helps the organisations that connect Australians remain effective, trusted and resilient.
Before turning to that topic, I want to thank Sue Woodward for your leadership of the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission, and for bringing us together for this year’s Governing for Good Forum.
I also acknowledge the members of the ACNC Advisory Board, chaired by Sarah Davies. I thank retiring members Myles McGregor‑Lowndes, Rosina Loria, Anna Bacik and David Crosbie for their service over the past 3 years. I welcome new members Alice Macdougall, Ian Murray, Krystian Seibert and Rosy Walia. I congratulate Sarah Davies, Sara Harrup, Ian Hamm and Nick Maisey for their continuing contribution.
With First Nations, multicultural and youth voices, the range of experience around the ACNC table continues to be a considerable asset.
I want to begin with an exciting announcement. Today, I am delighted to announce that, from October 2026 to June 2028, the Tax Commissioner will support the ACNC Commissioner to deliver a new Charity Resilience and Productivity Project.
I thank Tax Commissioner Rob Heferen for that support.
The project will help the ACNC build capability where the need is greatest: among small and volunteer‑run groups, newly registered charities, organisations working across language barriers, and charities in rural and regional Australia.
It will strengthen the ACNC’s work under its second statutory object: supporting and sustaining a robust, vibrant, independent and innovative charity sector.
That object is sometimes overshadowed by the ACNC’s important compliance work. Yet the ACNC’s job is also educational and enabling. It helps people who have agreed to serve on a board understand what the role requires. It helps a newly registered charity avoid turning a bookkeeping mistake into a governance crisis. It helps an organisation use new technology without exposing its donors, clients or volunteers to needless risk.
The Charity Resilience and Productivity Project will allow the ACNC to extend that education‑first approach.
It will provide practical help on common governance failures: muddled records, unmanaged conflicts of interest, internal disputes and the misuse of charitable funds. It will support charities to understand new laws. It will improve cyber hygiene, fraud awareness, data protection and the safe use of artificial intelligence and other productivity tools.
Some of this work will be delivered through short, usable resources. When a volunteer treasurer is looking for guidance at 11 pm after the children are in bed, a five‑minute guide may be more valuable than a 90‑page manual.
The project will also support face‑to‑face Meet the Regulators sessions, building on recent events in Alice Springs and Perth.
Those forums make the machinery of government less mysterious. A community group can walk into one room and speak with the ACNC, the Australian Taxation Office, the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations and a state regulator. They can find out who does what, which rule applies and where to turn next.
That is joined‑up government in its most useful form. Fewer referrals. More answers.
At the Perth forum last month, the first question put to the ATO Deputy Commissioner concerned Payday Super. That is hardly surprising. Registered charities employ around 11 per cent of Australia’s workforce. A change in workplace law can land quickly on the desk of a charity manager who is already juggling service delivery, fundraising, staffing and a board meeting on Thursday night.
The Charity Resilience and Productivity Project recognises the actual conditions in which charities operate.
Around half of all registered charities are volunteer‑run. About 60 per cent are micro or small, with annual revenue below half a million dollars. Their boards are often composed of people who bring goodwill, local knowledge and professional skill, but who may never have encountered the ACNC governance standards, a related‑party transaction policy or a cyber incident plan.
A governance failure in such an organisation may begin with a password shared too widely, a treasurer who keeps the only copy of the accounts, a committee member voting on a contract involving a relative, or an invoice that nobody quite remembers approving.
As any sailor can tell you, little cracks can admit a great deal of water.
Prevention is therefore part of productivity. A charity that avoids a fraud, a destructive internal dispute or a preventable compliance breach has more time and money for its purpose.
The Charity Resilience and Productivity Project will also amplify work already under way across government and the sector. The Department of Home Affairs is leading the Not‑for‑profit Cyber Uplift Community of Practice. Infoxchange is leading major work on digital capability through NFP Digital Futures. The National AI Centre is developing practical support for safe adoption of artificial intelligence.
The aim is to help charities choose useful tools, understand their risks and keep human judgment in charge.
A food‑relief charity might use software to schedule volunteers and reduce missed shifts. A disability organisation might use artificial intelligence to draft plain‑English material, then have a qualified person check it. A regional environmental group might move its records from one ageing laptop into secure cloud storage with proper access controls.
These are modest changes with tangible returns. Productivity in the charity sector often looks like 2 fewer hours spent reconciling spreadsheets, a donor database that does not collapse, or a volunteer coordinator who can spend Friday afternoon with people rather than paperwork.
The Tax Commissioner’s support also shows that the ACNC is working as intended.
The ACNC has clear statutory independence, written into its legislation. At the same time, the Act allows the Tax Commissioner to make staff available to assist the ACNC Commissioner.
That arrangement gives the ACNC the benefit of independence and access to the capacity of a much larger agency. It also reflects the constructive collaboration between the 2 institutions. A not‑for‑profit may need to register as a charity to remain income‑tax exempt. It may need help understanding self‑assessment rules, payroll obligations or Payday Super. Better guidance from the ACNC can reduce confusion and prevent problems that would otherwise arrive later at the ATO.
The need for that support has grown.
For years, the number of registered charities sat at around 60,000. It has now risen to roughly 66,000, partly as the new not‑for‑profit self‑review reporting measure is implemented. That is an increase of about 10 per cent, with further growth likely.
The broader sector is large and deeply woven into Australian life. It employs around 1½ million people and engages millions of volunteers. There is now roughly one registered charity for every 420 Australians.
The work of charities and nonprofits strengthens Australia’s social fabric. The community legal centre helping a tenant challenge an unlawful eviction. The volunteer fire brigade training on a winter evening. The neighbourhood house teaching English. The sports club finding a place for a child whose family cannot afford the fees.
Charities bring people into repeated contact with others whose lives differ from their own. In the words of my professor and coauthor Robert Putnam, they help not just with bonding social capital, but with bridging social capital. In an age of infinite scrolling and political sorting, that is valuable civic infrastructure.
Societies need trust to succeed, and right now, trust is under pressure.
At the National Press Club in June, I set out 4 pillars for a national trust agenda.
The first is to support Australians to give locally. Community foundations can connect local generosity with local knowledge. A person may want to help their town but have no desire to choose among dozens of individual organisations. A well‑run community foundation can pool gifts and support local work.
The second pillar is to strengthen the culture of bequest giving. Australia is approaching the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in our history. A bequest can turn one life’s accumulated assets into scholarships, medical research, environmental repair or support for families the donor will never meet.
The third pillar is digital capability. Cyber security, donor engagement and service delivery now depend on systems that many charities struggle to afford or assess. Digital capability has moved from the edge of governance to the centre.
The fourth pillar is continued partnership on reform, drawing on the Productivity Commission’s Future Foundations for Giving report and the Not‑for‑profit Sector Development Blueprint.
Since taking office, our government has worked collaboratively with the charity sector.
We are increasing the minimum annual distribution rate for giving funds to 6 per cent of net assets, while allowing distributions to be smoothed over 3 years. This should move more money into communities sooner, while giving funds room to make larger and more strategic grants.
We are simplifying access to deductible gift recipient status through a new community charity category and removing the ministerial declaration requirement. We have removed the $2 minimum threshold for tax‑deductible donations, making small gifts easier, including round‑up donations at the checkout.
We are also investing in digital capability and cyber resilience through the National AI Plan, the Cyber Security Strategy and the partnership with Infoxchange.
And we have provided $2.7 million to the ACNC and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to improve secure data sharing between the Charities Register and the Companies Register. From next year, charities should begin to see fewer inconsistencies and less duplication.
The ACNC itself has been doing a formidable amount with relatively modest resources.
In 2025-26, it handled more than 20,000 phone calls and more than 12,000 written enquiries. Its website received 3½ million visits. It registered 3,696 charities, bringing the total number of registered charities to 66,071 on 1 July 2026.
The ACNC is also working with states and territories to map the stages of a charity’s life: establishment, registration, operation and winding up. That work is valuable because regulatory burden accumulates. One form may be reasonable. Multiple overlapping forms, each asking for much the same information, can consume a volunteer’s weekend.
Reducing duplication gives charities more room to serve. It also improves compliance, because a system that people can understand is more likely to be followed.
This forum is called Governing for Good.
Governance is the discipline of asking where the money went, whether the program worked, who carries the risk and whose voice is missing.
Good boards create enough structure to protect the organisation. They know when to trust management and when to ask for another page of detail. They recognise that a rigorous evaluation is a sign of a strong organisation, even when the evaluation shows that a program wasn’t having the intended impact.
Above all, they remember that charitable assets are held for a purpose.
Charity governance also has a distinctive difficulty. In a business, the customer and the source of revenue are often the same person. In a charity, the donor, the volunteer, the employee and the beneficiary may all be different. The person paying for a service may never see it delivered. The person receiving it may have little power to complain. That separation makes stewardship especially important.
Consider a disaster appeal. Money can arrive in days, while the work of recovery lasts for years. A board has to decide how much to spend immediately, how much to reserve and how to explain the gap between public expectation and operational reality. Or consider a small arts charity offered free office space by a board member. The offer may be generous, yet it still requires disclosure, proper records and an independent judgment about value.
Governance turns good intentions into durable institutions. It creates the rails on which generosity can travel without running off the track.
The new Charity Resilience and Productivity Project will help more charities put those principles into practice. It will focus on education, prevention and early intervention. It will take support beyond capital cities. It will connect governance with digital safety and productivity. It will meet small charities where they are.
The government’s partnership with the sector is long term. Regulators, advisers, philanthropists and the public each have a role.
Professional advisers can raise giving and legacy planning with clients. Philanthropy can fund organisational capability as well as frontline services. Members of the public can volunteer, donate and join. government can make rules clearer and systems less repetitive. The ACNC can protect confidence while helping charities grow stronger.
The destination is a trust dividend: institutions that deserve confidence, communities with thicker connections, and charities able to spend more of their energy on the people and causes they exist to serve.
A high‑trust nation is a more connected Australia. A community of ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. A society where people cherish the common good. A nation where we value all that unites us.
Thank you to the ACNC for your leadership and to everyone taking part in today’s forum.
