Public Benefit Test Memorandum

1. Framework

To be a charity for the purposes of the Charities Act, every purpose of an entity must be a charitable purpose, and every charitable purpose must be for the public benefit (s.5 Charities Act). Section 6 establishes a presumption of public benefit for certain purposes (including the relief of poverty, sickness or the needs of the aged), which may be rebutted only by evidence to the contrary. Section 7 sets out how public benefit is otherwise established.

Life Without Debt Ltd ("the Company") relies on both limbs:

1. the section 6 presumption applies because the Company's dominant purpose is the relief of poverty and sickness (clause 4(a) of the Constitution); and
2. independently under section 7, the Company's purposes produce identifiable public benefits and its beneficiary class is a section of the public that is sufficient in relation to the purpose.

2. Identifiable public benefit

2.1 Nature of the benefit

Beneficiaries of the Company receive one or more of the following benefits:

• Debt relief: waiver, reduction, restructure, moratorium or forbearance of unmanageable debt through professional negotiation with creditors — restoring financial capacity in the final period of life or during serious illness.
• Direct financial relief: essential living costs (rent, utilities, food, transport) and unfunded health-related costs, means-tested and capped under the Direct Relief Policy.
• Reduced psychological distress: financial toxicity in serious illness is well documented as a driver of anxiety, depression and impaired treatment adherence — the Company's intervention directly relieves that distress.
• Preserved dignity and family stability: beneficiaries and their families are relieved of the burden of managing complex creditor negotiations while coping with terminal or serious illness.
• Systemic benefit: creditor institutions are educated and equipped with more compassionate hardship protocols, producing sector-wide benefits that extend beyond individual beneficiaries.

2.2 The benefit is not incidental

The benefit is not merely a by-product of the Company's activities: it is the intended outcome of every stage of the Six-Stage Case Intervention. Each stage is documented, measured (with the internal Stress Score methodology as one measure) and reported on to the Board.

3. The beneficiary class is a "section of the public"

3.1 The class — restated

Natural persons in Australia who are, or whose immediate family member is, living with a terminal, life-limiting, chronic or serious illness or health condition, and who are experiencing (or are at material risk of) financial hardship as a consequence of that illness.

3.2 Not defined by personal relationship, contract or arbitrary criterion

Under s.7(2) Charities Act, a section of the general public is not confined by personal or contractual relationship. The Company's beneficiary class is defined solely by:

• a public health status (living with, or being an immediate family member of a person living with, a specified illness); and
• a public financial condition (experiencing or being at material risk of financial hardship);

Neither criterion is a personal or contractual relationship with the founders, Directors or any private interest. Beneficiaries have no pre-existing relationship with the Company. Referral pathways are open (public website, treating clinicians, allied charities, financial counsellors, community legal centres, state carer-support services).

3.3 Scale / "appreciable" section of the community

• ABS data: ABS estimates several hundred thousand new diagnoses of life-limiting or chronic serious illnesses each year in Australia.
• Palliative Care Australia data: approximately 130,000 Australians die each year from expected illnesses (i.e. would benefit from a palliative approach).
• Financial-hardship prevalence: the National Debt Helpline, ASIC MoneySmart and ABA report significant hardship contact volumes from Australians with serious illness. Hospital social-work and palliative care teams routinely report unmet financial-hardship need.

The beneficiary class is materially larger than beneficiary classes accepted as "appreciable" in past cases (see Trustees of the Indigenous Barristers' Trust v FCT, where a class of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people seeking a barrister's career at the NSW Bar was accepted as public despite a very small numerical class).

4. Presumption of public benefit — s.6

Section 6(1) presumes public benefit for the purpose of:

• preventing and relieving sickness, disease or human suffering; and
• relieving the poverty, distress or disadvantage of individuals.

Clause 4(a) of the Company's Constitution expressly pursues each of these purposes. The presumption is therefore engaged and there is no evidence to rebut it: no private benefit is conferred beyond what is incidental and permitted by the Not-for-profit clause (clause 7).

5. Absence of disqualifying purposes and detriment

• The Company has no disqualifying purposes under s.11 of the Charities Act (no unlawful activity, no political-party promotion or opposition).
• The Company's activities do not produce net detriment: creditor institutions receive requests for waiver/restructure but these are consensual outcomes negotiated in accordance with the law and the ABA Banking Code — creditors are not compelled and their statutory rights are preserved.
• The Company's advocacy is ancillary to relief and does not have the "predominant character" of political campaigning (distinguishing Aid/Watch concerns).

6. Private benefit is incidental

Any private benefits (remuneration to the CEO, employees and contractors; the CoSai CFO Services in-kind arrangement) are:

• expressly permitted by clause 7.3 of the Constitution;
• reasonable, market-based, and documented under the Related-Party Transactions Policy;
• necessary to enable the pursuit of the charitable purposes; and
• incidental to the pursuit of those purposes rather than being an independent private objective.

7. Conclusion

The Company's purposes are for the public benefit within the meaning of the Charities Act. The section 6 presumption applies to the Company's dominant purpose of relieving sickness and poverty and is not rebutted. Independently under section 7, the Company's beneficiary class is a section of the public that is sufficient in relation to the purpose, and the identifiable public benefits are demonstrable and not merely incidental.