Senator Nick Sherry's view on Government's role in social enterprise and social investment

Yesterday I attended the Investing for Impact Forum run by the Centre for Social Impact where Senator Nick Sherry, the Assistant Treasurer, gave the keynote address. He spoke of the societal changes from 20 years ago when he was first a Superannuation Fund Trustee and there was no discussion about how investment could bring about social and environmental change. This has changed dramatically, including for the role that Government plays in social investment.

Senator Sherry spoke of the Government’s need to encourage the growing role of the for-profit sector in social enterprise and also create the right regulatory environment to stimulate social investment. And this seems to be working well, particularly with changes to the taxation regulations stimulating philanthropy. Since the inception nearly a decade ago of private philanthropy trusts (now called the Private Ancillary Funds or PAFs), there has been an exponential growth of private philanthropy with over 800 funds developed with assets of $2 billion. That’s a lot of extra money being invested annually in charities!

Sherry also spoke of the Rudd Government’s commitment to support the greater emergence of social enterprises in Australia, for example through the economic stimulus package designed to create 2000 jobs during the GFC. And STREAT is a certainly grateful for this having received $1.2 million through the Jobs Fund which was part of the stimulus package, though it still seems ironic to me that the collapse of markets worldwide may well be the catalyst for development of Australian social enterprises like STREAT, to start using that same marketplace to bring about social change.

Overall there’s no doubt that social enterprise and social investment is on the Government’s agenda. I think we’re making progress!