The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill 2012 and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (Consequential and Transitional) Bill 2012 have been passed by the Senate with amendments.

The bills have been sent to the House of Representatives for approval of the changes.

The amendments include:

• clarification that the governance standards will be focussed on outcomes and will specify principles as to how the registered entity must achieve those outcomes, including proportional standards that recognise the size and nature of the registered entity;
• provide for the maximum annual revenue for a deductible gift recipient fund (DGR fund) operated by a basic religious charity to be increased from $250,000, in line with changes to the thresholds for small registered entities; and
• simplify the transition of entities to ACNC regulation where entities are operating a public benevolent institution (or multiple public benevolent institutions) or a health promotion charity (or multiple health promotion charities) and where the whole of the entity is not such an institution (that is, where the institution is notionally operated or conducted in-house, usually by an unincorporated religious institution) to ensure these entities transition appropriately to the ACNC, and both the operated institution of the entity, and the remainder of the entity keep the existing concessions they currently have access to.