As part of the Australian Government’s commitment to double philanthropic giving by 2030, it tasked the Productivity Commission to undertake an inquiry to analyse motivations for philanthropic giving in Australia and identify opportunities to grow it further. Volunteering was included in the scope of the inquiry, and the final report includes a number of recommendations on volunteering.
Volunteering Australia and the State and Territory volunteering peak bodies made submissions on the initial Call for Submissions and in response to the draft report. We have published a Briefing which summarises the volunteering-related recommendations in the final report.
We welcome the following:
- Recommendation 6.1 for a proposed simpler, refocused deductible gift recipient (DGR) system under which the Commission estimates around 6,000 additional volunteer-run charities would have easier access to DGR status.
- Recommendation 7.7 to require Australian, state, territory and local governments to explicitly consider the effects on volunteers when designing policies and programs.
- Recommendation 9.4 for the Australian Bureau of Statistics to improve the usefulness of public information sources on volunteering.
We were disappointed that the Commission did not recommend exploring how the tax system could be used to support volunteering (for example through making volunteering expenses tax deductible) and we continue to advocate for this to be considered.
We look forward to engaging with the Australian Government to progress the recommendations and turn them into action.
