Today I asked the Federal Treasurer to commit to providing deductible gift recipient (DGR) status nationally to the Headstone Project. His long-winded political mumbo-jumbo answer can only be decoded to mean “no”. This means it won’t be extended to any of the states currently without DGR status and Tasmania, which currently has such status, is very possibly going to lose it.
This is a shocking turn of events, a betrayal of our World War One veterans and a slap in the face of all the wonderful people who have created and grown the Headstone Project. The Treasurer’s answer today is all the more ugly when one considers some of the other organisations that will continue to receive DGR status while Headstone loses it.
The Headstone Project has its origins in Tasmania and is now a national volunteer program committed to identifying and marking with plaques the thousands of unmarked graves of World War One veterans in Australia.