Mr. Brian Casey:

I thank the Senator for the question and his support. We are fully compliant with the Charities Regulator. It has 49 standards and we are fully compliant with all those. It is independently audited annually and our accounts are available on our website. We are very transparent with the public about the amount of money it costs to run the alliance. We are quite lean. Our budget is tight because there is not a high appetite for spending on administration within the charity sector. We have very good and strong governance. There is a strong request and demand for that, rightfully so, by the public. We have a very strong board and a number of committees and working groups. We have a very small staff of three people to run our secretariat and the rest of our work is managed by the seven member agencies, so we are quite lean in how we operate. We have a target of reducing our administrative spend of 7% to 6%. As our appeals increase and more people learn about our work we will be reducing our administrative percentage and becoming leaner in future.