Church lobby in win over charities watchdog

AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 1, 2013

Royce Millar
Investigative reporter

If Tony Abbott is elected prime minister on Saturday he will abolish the watchdog established by Labor to keep an eye on the billions of dollars received and spent by Australian charities each year.

Why?

The answer, in part at least, may be the lobbying power of church conservatives, the Catholic Church in particular, and the office of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, more particularly still.

And their focus has not been the Coalition alone. Labor insiders acknowledge the impact of Cardinal Pell’s office as it reduced the scope of its new national regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.

Charity leaders, church heads and political insiders have told The Sunday Age about the lobbying campaign over charities regulation by the Sydney archdiocese, notably Cardinal Pell’s business manager and chief political envoy, Danny Casey.

The pressure applied by the Sydney church through the charities debate has raised the question of the access and sway it may enjoy under Australia’s first Catholic Liberal prime minister and his Catholic-strong frontbench that includes Kevin Andrews, Barnaby Joyce, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull (a convert), Andrew Robb and Christopher Pyne.

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