Chris Delforce: We will be calling for an immediate review, as it is extremely inappropriate for decisions about charities to be made by third parties with a financial stake in their revocation.
PAUL JOHNSON: ‘Animal activist group Aussie Farms has accused the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) of being corrupted by “business interests” after having its charity status revoked. The group was responsible for several animal rights protests across Australia and has an interactive website that claims to list alleged “animal exploitation facilities”.
These actions drew the ire of farmers, who felt they were targeted… The ACNC did not go into the details of why they removed Aussie Farms’ charity status but said the group would no longer be able to access Commonwealth charity tax concessions, including income tax exemption, fringe benefits tax rebates and goods and services tax concessions…
Aussie Farms hit back in a statement of their own, accusing the regulator of a lack of independence.”We find it both extremely disappointing and concerning to have learned of this from an animal agriculture publication rather than from the ACNC themselves, and that the publication in question received advance notice of this decision last week,” Aussie Farms executive director Chris Delforce told the ABC, referring to where the story broke…
Mr Delforce went on to call for a review of the ACNC’s actions. “We will be calling for an immediate review of the ACNC’s ability to operate independently and without corruption by business interests, as it is extremely inappropriate for decisions about charities to be made by third parties with a financial stake in their revocation,” Mr Delforce added…
Aussie Farms was registered by the ACNC effective 1 January 2018, with the purpose of preventing or relieving the suffering of animals. Mr Delforce’s mother was stood down from her role at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade pending an external investigation into potential links to activist websites’. SOURCE…
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