Senator BARTLETT (11:59 AM) —The Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 8) 1999 is one of a number of taxation measures. Indeed, I think the word `taxation' has been mentioned more times in this chamber this year than possibly any time in the history of Federation, and we still have a bit of a way to go. Senator Conroy, the Labor Party spokesperson on this issue, who normally is so keen to speak voluminously on matters relating to tax—except perhaps business tax; he did not seem quite so keen to talk about that very much recently—was listed to speak before me but perhaps on this particular occasion he is still pondering his words in relation to this issue.

This bill has been to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee and both I and Senator Woodley were involved in the hearings for that bill, along with a separate piece of legislation that we will deal with at another time. The Democrats had a number of comments in relation to that which I will flag shortly. I note that the report from the Labor senators on that piece of legislation basically indicated that Labor would be reserving their position on this particular bill. So I will be listening with interest, as I always do, to Senator Conroy as to what Labor's position is going to be on this bill. It is quite an interesting bill. It is a bit separate from all the matters of tax we have been talking about in recent months relating to the GST, indirect tax, capital gains tax, business tax, fringe benefits tax, et cetera. This obviously links to various issues relating to taxation and tax deductibility, but it is specifically related to the Prime Minister's agenda, if you like, of encouraging corporate philanthropy or private philanthropy.

The aim of the bill in trying to further encourage the private sector, the corporate sector and the public in general to contribute more to charities—to non-profit groups; to good works, if you like, to use the broadest possible term—is something that I do not think anyone could argue with. It has been noted a number of times that the US, in particular, and other parts of the world have quite strongly established a tradition of philanthropy over time. It is something that we are lacking to some extent in Australia. That is not to suggest that Australians are miserly or uncharitable. But in terms of any structured sense of broadscale philanthropic measures from corporations and wealthy individuals, I think it is fair to say that we do not have a particularly strong tradition. Obviously there is something to be gained by examining ways of establishing such a tradition or increasing practices in that regard.

Clearly we cannot rely solely on the public purse to fund every noble activity in the community. Nonetheless, I think it is worth highlighting a couple of aspects of that issue just to put it in context. It is not simply a matter of the public purse or the government providing most of the funding for charitable activities to date and now we need to get some big business or companies or whatever to be involved in it. I think it is worth noting as often as possible the immense contribution that the average person makes in the area of assisting in charitable activities.

A lot of that is not going to be in relation to sizeable donations—people still give their $5 or $10 or $20 when the Red Shield Appeal representatives come knocking on their doors. It is important to emphasise the enormous contribution that many, many people in the community make through things such as voluntary work and providing extra assistance to non-profit groups, whether it is being a voluntary treasurer to the local scout group, assisting with a stall down at the local market or helping out once a year at your local historical society—any of those sorts of activities. They are not easily able to be measured in relation to the thrust of what this bill is about, which is providing some tax incentives for large scale donations. I think it is worth noting that this will not assist and encourage some of that other small scale community activity. Having said that, I do not have any immediate brilliant ideas about how best to facilitate that. So it is not meant to be a criticism. I think it is worth making the comment just to put it in a broader context.

Already people make an enormous invaluable and almost immeasurable contribution in the community at all levels that keeps society turning. One of the issues in relation to ensuring that not-for-profit organisations are not negatively impacted by various changes is the immense value of the work that those groups do. It is not the private sector, in my view, or the government in many respects that ensures that social needs are met; it is the non-profit sector and the community itself that I believe make the greatest contribution to ensuring that social needs are met.

Government has an important role to play, and the private sector has an important role to play. Inasmuch as the purpose of this bill is about trying to encourage the private sector to play a greater role—and I think that is appro priate—if anything, the burden to date has been borne most heavily by the general community and non-profit organisations first, in my view, by the government second and by the private sector third. I think we would be doing a good thing if we were able to redress that imbalance. The Democrats believe that this bill does seek to go part of the way towards doing that. It is fairly narrow in its scope in terms of what it encourages. I think that is something that needs to be highlighted.

The Senate committee heard some evidence from the Australian Conservation Foundation and also received documentation—in particular, one very worthwhile document called Philanthropy: sustaining the land. It specifically explored some fairly straightforward tax measures that could provide an incentive for people to assist in land conservation, particularly in terms of donating land, putting covenants over their land and assisting in ensuring inappropriate development does not occur on land in perpetuity. I think that is a particular opportunity which this bill does not grasp.

The Democrats would be keen to move amendments in the committee stage of this debate to move further in that direction. They are not circulated as yet. I would hope the chamber would not be critical of the Democrats for not having circulated those, given the fairly absurd rush of legislation we have had in recent times in this place and this particular bill having come on at exceedingly short notice, shall we say—so exceedingly short that even the ever enthusiastic Senator Conroy was not able to get here in time. So, if feasible, I would like to explore those sorts of issues further in the committee stage via amendments. I do not know whether there is any opportunity to move to other pieces of legislation in the interim or to even have something to eat, but we will see what happens in that regard.

I think the broader issue of encouraging, through tax incentives and other measures, greater contribution from the private sector to philanthropic activities, charitable works, cultural expansion or whatever areas of activity you want to look at should be encouraged. Obviously, you always have to look at the best way to go about that and ensure that proposals put forward that seek to achieve that aim do actually work towards achieving that aim and are not mistaken in their intent. That is part of what the examination of this particular bill is about.

It is worth highlighting some of the activities that have happened and are already occurring in the community to demonstrate how valuable the expansion of private contributions in this area can be. I will focus a bit more specifically on environmental areas again, but in doing that I do not wish to suggest that other non-profit activities are not equally important. This bill focuses to some extent on areas of culture or cultural donations. That is worth while as well. There is also a much broader area of activity that could benefit from further contributions and further incentives to assist in the way that cultural activities are assisted through this bill.

I will mention a couple of areas of environmental activity that are already occurring. Senators may be aware of an organisation called Trust for Nature, Victoria, which specifically works with private land-holders. It is separate from the equally important government activity of establishing national parks and state forests and having public sector management or government based management of those areas of land. That is obviously crucial, and it is an area of activity that the Democrats strongly support. But organisations such as Trust for Nature work in the area of private ownership of land or ownership through entities such as this trust. They work with the land-holder whilst the land-holder is still on the land, and they can perform the role of environmental or conservation custodian for that land.

Oftentimes, the perception is that land-holders in regional areas are exploiting or developing the land and significantly changing the nature of the land. We have a sad history in Australia in terms of some of the damage we have done to the land, not just in straightforward issues such as the clearing of vegetation but also in the flow-on impacts, such as biodiversity, species extinction, salinity, damage to waterways, pollution, et cetera. All of those areas are ongoing prob lems, and enormous effort is being put into trying to fix those problems.

We have heard a lot in this chamber about government initiatives and government funding being put into various measures—the Natural Heritage Trust, Landcare, et cetera—aimed at fixing some of those problems and preventing future problems. That is crucial, but as we all know the amounts being put in are not adequate to address it, and we are still very much fighting a difficult battle, if not a losing battle, in relation to that. Further action can be taken and needs to be taken by government in that regard, but clearly the task would be much easier if we were able to provide extra assistance through other mechanisms for the community itself and for the private sector to contribute resources, whether money, time or expertise, to that ongoing task.

Taxation law can be a very worthwhile mechanism for doing that. Some of the material provided to the Senate inquiry highlighted examples of measures in place in the United States, for example, which provide extra incentives for people, exemptions from taxation, various taxes or other incentives, whether deductions or assistance with depreciation. I think those sorts of measures are urgently needed and need to be explored and embraced by government very quickly because we are still fighting a losing battle.

I spoke in this place not too long ago about the very severe and urgent problem in my own state of Queensland of the continuing, uncontrolled land clearing that is occurring, generating among other things 33 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Queensland. That issue alone is an enormous problem. According to the Queensland government, one of the hurdles that they are facing in addressing that is in relation to providing adequate financial incentive for land-holders not to clear and not to extract immediate economic value from their land, as the land-holders think they are entitled to.

That highlights in itself how big a difference economic incentives provided to land-holders not to further damage the land can make and how central they are. It is quite reasonable for people to try to make a living, and that is a point that a lot of land-holders and farmers make all the time. If we want to encourage a long-term sustainable view of our land and try to address some of the immediate economic imperatives that can sometimes lead to people doing damage to the land because of the immediate pressure of economic factors, then we can look at measures involving the taxation system as well as direct payments. Again, that comes back to payment from the public purse. Providing tax incentives, deductibility, exemptions, et cetera obviously has an impact on general revenue and on the budget as a whole. I do not deny that. There is still a potential financial cost to the taxpayer and to the government.

You have to look at the long term. One of the aims of this bill is to try to sow the seeds of a long-term tradition, a long-term change, in Australian culture, corporate behaviour and the private sector's behaviour. The benefits that can be gained, even if you wish to measure things solely in dollars and cents, can be enormous. Using the Queensland example, if we were able to at a particular immediate cost stop land clearing in Queensland—as the Labor Party unequivocally promised to do before they came into power in the last election in Queensland—the environmental and economic benefits in the long term to that state would be almost immeasurable. In one hit we could address 33 per cent of Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions—I think it is 13 per cent or 14 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. That would be an enormous advance, and that is ignoring some of the other major benefits in preserving biodiversity and, indeed, in preserving the value, the worth and the health of that land in the long term, which assists people to remain on land and assists in preserving the viability of local communities.

There can be immense and immeasurable benefits if we provide some incentives for people to act now or to cease particular actions and change their actions to provide a better environmental and social outcome. But we do have to provide those incentives, particularly if we are looking at trying to generate a shift in perception and a shift in behaviour. As I understand some of the Prime Minister's speeches on this area and the broader philanthropy agenda, that is part of what he is trying to do.

When you are trying to generate a shift in perception and a shift in behaviour, you do need to provide some incentives. Unfortunately, like many things immediate economic imperatives tend to drive a lot of human behaviour these days. Providing some changes to the structure of our taxation system enables those economic imperatives to be alleviated so that people can see beyond their immediate economic need. If that can be alleviated, they are able to look at bit more broadly and a bit more long term. The benefits to all of us, not just to those individual people, can be immense.

In closing, in relation to this bill I would like to highlight and recognise the overwhelming importance of the contribution that the general community, the average person and non-profit organisations make in Australia. We are looking at philanthropy and corporations providing significant extra assistance. We have seen some advances in recent times, with corporations sponsoring extra activities and providing extra donations to community activities.

I am sure all senators, in the various things they are involved in—the various functions, the various places they go and the various parts of the community they see—constantly come across, as I do, marvellous things being done at the grassroots level by people for no reward. They are often started by a very small piece of assistance, even sometimes just a few hundred dollars or $1,000 from local businesses or corporations. That little bit of extra assistance, that seed funding, can produce enormous benefits. Any measure that encourages that sort of activity and that sows more of those seeds has to be encouraged if it is able to be done in a way that is sustainable both in terms of equity and financial responsibility. That is an activity the Democrats would very much like to encourage.