46. Advisory Committees

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the State Government plan to abolish a raft of advisory committees and boards across all government areas. The committees have now been asked to show cause why they shouldn’t be cut.

The government says it is getting rid of bureaucracy and allowing citizens direct access to government. Who could complain about that? Well, I could!

The idea that having experts or stakeholder representatives on committees advising government somehow stops people having access to government is bizarre. It blames committees for separate processes of poor government engagement with the community, and it misunderstands the role of those advisory boards and committees.

The fact is that such committees can be useful, and often the only chance different stakeholders get to sit around a table to try to arrive at a common position.

That is potentially good both for policy development and for better community understanding of issues.

The real problem with such committees is that this potential is systematically sabotaged. The relevant government department usually controls the agenda and most of the information flow to the committee, and takes up most of the meeting time proferring its own advice or doing show-and-tell presentations on uncontroversial issues.

The committees are usually chaired and peopled by those handpicked or approved by Ministers and departments, ensuring the committees are “reasonable” (Humphrey Appleby would say “sound”) rather than representative.

Participants may be further prevented from reporting back to their constituencies by government-imposed confidentiality requirements, and there is a pervasive culture that avoids conflict or hard questions by not making formal decisions. Despite rules requiring majority decision making, votes are almost never taken.

General discussion and opinion substitutes for policy advice, and committee minutes – written and vetted by the department – simply note briefings and discussion with no actual decisions or outcomes.

So, having gutted and undermined the ability of these advisory committees to give independent and robust advice, the government now says they don’t work and should be abolished.

But here’s a radical idea, why not try to make them work by actually giving them independence and real questions to deal with – and expect actual decisions and advice, not just discussion and noting of government briefings.

Of course, that’s hard – and challenging. You might get different, and maybe even uncomfortable policies put forward. Perish the thought – much simpler just to abolish the committees.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.





This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 5 August 2014

36. Red Tape Reduction (Again)

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about red tape reduction (again).

I recently grumbled about the government’s “bonfire” approach to red tape reduction, but fortunately the national charity regulator, the ACNC has been saved at least temporarily from the bonfire and there is a now a Senate Committee review.

I suspect the Committee will simply hear again that most charities like the notion of a purpose-built, independent regulator and don’t wish to be returned to the regulation by the tax collector.

But if the government really wanted to reduce red tape for the charitable sector, it would pick up recent recommendations from the Not-For-Profit Reform Working Group about changes to tax deductible gift giving.

Currently, most charities get tax basic concessions by virtue of being charities. But if you want donations to you to be tax deductible, you need a whole separate process. In many case you need to establish a separate Gift Fund in your constitution with its own bank account and management committee. And if you’re an environmental, arts or harm prevention charity you then need to apply to the relevant Minister to be placed on the appropriate register of organisations.

The Minister may sit on an application for years, or grant it as if it was a piece of political largesse for supportive charities.

However, there are also charities who are exempt from such Ministerial whim – those who because of some historical accident or political deal are listed in legislation as being deductible gift recipients.

It’s stupid and it’s dodgy.

A good piece of red-tape reduction would be to abolish the need for a separate Gift Fund and the various Registers, and repeal the separate parliamentary listings and then simply extend tax deductible gift recipient status to all charities.

This would increase donations to charities, remove the implicit notion that some charities are more worthy than others, and be a direct assistance to thousands of organisations who are doing good work in the community.

It should be simple – if you are a not-for-profit organisation with a charitable purpose, you should get all the same tax charity concessions. Full stop.

If the government is not prepared to embrace this really good piece of red tape reduction for the charitable sector, we might just begin to suspect that their red tape reduction is really about something else – which is where I finished my previous grumble.

I am Greg and I am still grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 15 April 2014

32. Red Tape Bonfires

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about “repeal day” – it’s tomorrow and it’s the day touted by the Federal government where over 10,000 regulations and legislative provisions will be repealed in a veritable bonfire of red tape reduction.

It is very exciting … except that you cut red tape, you don’t burn it. As any park ranger will tell you (if you can find such an increasingly rare species), when you burn things – even with good intentions – it can get out of control.

The government has copped lots of criticism over the proposal to remove restrictions on financial advisers' secret commissions and is now trying to hose down that particular part of the bonfire.

But I want to grumble about another bit of the pyromania: the abolition of the national charity regulator, the ACNC (Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission). This is not a hangover of some ancient legislation – it is a body put in place 18 months ago after a raft of government reports recommending its establishment.

There is widespread support for the ACNC in the community sector, although there are a few different voices from some parts of the Catholic Church who object to a slight increase in transparency for their tax free entities. But we only have to watch the nightly news to see how well trust and self-regulation has worked for the Church.

Let’s be clear though. Abolishing the ACNC is not about red tape reduction – it is simply a transfer of regulation from the ACNC back to the Tax Office or to ASIC. And when they had responsibility previously, they failed to even maintain an up-to-date list of who was entitled to get tax concessions and where those organisations could be found.

More importantly, the Tax Office has been used by past governments to attack and pressure charities who were doing effective policy advocacy.

For that reason, when the ACNC was established, its governing legislation ensured the independence of charities and our right to advocate for charitable causes. With its abolition, we lose the protections of an independent regulator.

This government has already been attacking advocacy: defunding the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia and the Environmental Defenders’ Offices, and cutting funding to Aboriginal community legal centres on the basis that advocacy and not front-line services should be cut.

So beware.

There are historical precedents for using bonfires to silence dissent: books, witches, villages – but it is not a good record.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 25 March 2014

29. Excellence

I am Greg and I want to grumble about that genre of mindless bureaucracy which is service quality standards or service excellence accreditation.

The accreditation is a potentially useful idea sabotaged by a focus on process rather than outcomes as someone goes into a workplace they may have no understanding of to ensure that a series of policies and practices are in place – regardless of whether or not those predetermined processes are useful or appropriate.

And so, there are occupational health and safety processes to ensure that office workers don’t get paper cuts in the paperless offices, whilst at the same time ignoring the big issues of workload, long hours, and job insecurity.

There are staff management policies which ensure that the most ruthless bosses know which boxes to tick and the best managers can’t do what might actually promote good work; and privacy policies full of stunning requirements like keeping people’s private information private.

There are even policies about having policies, but not, sadly, about whether the work and service is actually excellent.

And that is the point. Excellence is about a focus on people’s needs and outcomes, it is not about an accumulation of processes divorced from outcomes, and organisational structures and cultures.

Any accreditation divorced from outcomes, but particularly in relation to services to vulnerable and disadvantaged people is insulting, and a great waste of time and resources, but apparently you won’t be eligible for government grants and contracts if you don’t have such important paperwork. Not that that will stop another set of bureaucrats asking you again for the same policies when you apply for or report on the abovesaid grants.

So while we hear lots of talk about red tape reduction, and have seen some good moves at state and federal level lately, there is still a long, long way to go.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.


This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 18 February 2014