Never mind too that world-wide there are countless thousands of social-activist groups working behind the scenes to counter the inevitable abuses of both corporate and government power.
This world-wide peoples activist movement is described by, and simultaneously provides a catalyst for, by Paul Hawken in his book Blessed Unrest
http://www.blessedunrest.com

Unfortunately of course there is oft-times very little difference, because corporations and big capital now rule the world. They always did of course but it is now in-your-face obvious.
See When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten, The Captive State by George Monbiot, Who Will Tell the People by William Greider, Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann, and the work of both Henry Giroux and Tom Engelhardt.

Lillian, Wow! Agree with most of what you say.

This bloke seems to be talking out of his back pocket or somewhere very adjacent! All very smelly and shoveled by the shipload?

Perhaps he should try talking from a little higher up; or declare a political allegiance, to say, he who must be Obied!?
Rhrosty.

Many of the commentators have missed the point entirely. If the various groups mentioned want to engage in political activity or activism or whatever, they are free to do so. But should donations to those organisations be tax free as they are with the Catholic church or St Vincent's? This doesn't seem fair. Commentators have mentioned skeptical organisations that have got DGR status (deductible gift recipient - donations are deductible for tax). Oh sure. It all depends on what they are doing, but there are many, many more green NGOs with DGR status than there are skeptical orgs.. Don't believe this? Try counting up NGOs and skeptical orgs..

The ones I object to are the full time activists on Centrelink befits, who seem to spend their time either in the southern ocean with Sea Shephard, protesting logging by camping in a tree for months, or cutting drum lines to stop the shark cull. What ever happened to having to turn up at a centre link office occasionally to prove you were actively seeking work?

"Stopping development is against the public interest." Says who? I say lets develop another asbestos mine that'd be in the public interest. How can the author expect to be taken seriously with a statement like that.

I have not often seen so many comments which do not agree with the author of the article (except for articles by John Pilger).
Gary Johns seems to want to move us towards 1984 at an even faster rate than we are already moving in that direction. The corporate section will end up paying no tax and the rest of us will just do as we are told by the corporate media.
It is hard to see why a corporation destroying our natural environment should pay no tax and that we should tax those who try to prevent the destruction.