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representatives vote 2019-10-24#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2019-11-08 12:58:46
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Title
Bills — Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019; Second Reading- Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 - Second Reading - Stagnating economy
Description
<p class="speaker">Stephen Jones</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:</p>- The majority voted against an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2019-10-24.13.1) to the usual second reading motion, which is that the bill be read for a [second time](https://www.peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/bills-and-laws/making-a-law-in-the-australian-parliament/) (parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill). The amendment was introduced by Whitlam MP [Stephen Jones](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/whitlam/stephen_jones) (Labor).
- ### Amendment text
- > *That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:*
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- > *"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:*
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- > *(1) recognises the importance of cash for conducting transactions around Australia; and*
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- > *(2) notes the concerns that have arisen in some parts of the community about the bill, in the context of the stagnating Australian economy under the Coalition Government".*
<p class="italic">"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:</p><p class="italic">(1) recognises the importance of cash for conducting transactions around Australia; and</p><p class="italic">(2) notes the concerns that have arisen in some parts of the community about the bill, in the context of the stagnating Australian economy under the Coalition Government".</p><p>This bill, the Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019, establishes a cash payment limit and introduces offences for entities that make or accept cash payments of $10,000 or more from 1 January 2020. Offences under the new provision would carry a maximum penalty of $25,000, or two years imprisonment, for individuals or businesses which recklessly break the cash limit. These offences can apply whether the individual is a recipient of or a payee of the cash value. The bill follows on from the 2018 report of the government's Black Economy Taskforce, which found that large cash payments can be anonymous and untraceable, allowing businesses to underreport their income and to offer consumers discounts for transactions that reflect the business' avoided obligation. It has also found that the cash economy is a vehicle for money laundering.</p><p>The bill does include the power to make exceptions to the cash payment limit, through a legislative instrument made by the relevant minister. I understand that the government's draft rules—which are not a part of the bill—would exempt the following types of payments. Firstly, payments related to personal or private transactions—for example, purchasing a motor vehicle off somebody in your neighbourhood. Secondly, payments that must be reported by an entity under the anti-money laundering and counterterrorism legislation, provided that, broadly, the entity with a reporting obligation complies with their obligation under that legislation. The third exemption under the draft rules would apply to payments made or accepted by a public official, in which the public official is legally required to make or accept a cash payment in the course of their duties. The fourth exemption would apply to payments that only exceed the cash payment limit because the payment is part of a transaction involving collecting, holding or delivering cash that is undertaken in the course of an enterprise of collecting or delivering cash. That seems to be an obvious one, as well. The fifth exemption would be payments that only exceed the cash payment limit because the payment is or includes an amount of digital currency. The draft rules also provide to exempt payments that occur in situations where no alternative method of payment could be reasonably used, although I do make the point that it is unclear whether this would apply as an exemption or a defence to an offence arising under the legislation, a matter that requires further interrogation. Future rules could exempt other types of payments or be changed to remove exemptions for types of payments.</p><p>There has been a lot of concern within the community about the impact of this bill. There wouldn't be a member in this House who hasn't received representations from constituents in relation to it. To facilitate the orderly interrogation of those concerns and the swift passage of this bill to the Senate, where it may be further interrogated and investigated, Labor won't be opposing the bill in the House. But we have been working with the crossbenches to ensure that there is a rigorous examination of the provisions of the bill in the Senate in order to ensure that all of the community concerns that have been raised with Labor, and presumably with the crossbenches as well, are thoroughly ventilated, investigated and dealt with. It is a significant provision, with significant penalties, and we want to ensure that there are no unintended consequences and that those community concerns can be dealt with.</p><p>While the tap-and-go phenomenon—which, I must confess, I've adopted—is an amazing convenience, we do recognise that cash remains a favoured medium of transaction for many law-abiding members of the Australian community. Those in small business, pensioners and retirees and members of Australia's diverse multicultural communities have an attachment to cash and to using cash for their everyday transactions. Older Australians use cash for more than half of their payments. Australians in the lowest income quartile use cash for more than 40 per cent of all of their payments. We recognise their concerns, and the concerns of the communities, as being worthy of further consideration. This is why we have worked with the crossbench on ensuring that we can investigate, and hopefully allay, the concerns that have been raised.</p><p>It is important to understand why Australians have these concerns with the government's proposed cash-transaction ban, and it's why I've moved an amendment at the second reading stage of the bill's consideration. The truth of the matter is that Australians have no faith in this government's capacity to manage the economic problems that the country is facing right now, and they certainly have no faith in the government's ability to manage those problems in the interests of ordinary everyday Australians. The Morrison government quite simply has a plan for a slogan—it's got a political plan—but, to coin a phrase, as to an economic plan, 'Where the bloody hell are you?' They've no plan for the country when it comes to managing economic growth or managing the parlous state of wage increases. Of economic growth, we have the lowest rate since the global financial crisis. The economy is struggling. The government loves to blame every problem on somebody else. Whether it's economic headwinds or Labor, somebody else is always at fault; somebody else is always the cause of the problem; it's not the parlous state of their own economic management.</p><p>Our economy is struggling, but the New Zealand economy, just across the ditch, is growing at nearly twice the pace of ours. No Australian ever likes to be beaten by a Kiwi in anything, and, while the Kiwis have raced ahead, Australian household living standards have declined under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison disaster show. Real household median income is lower now than it was in 2013. Wages are growing at the lowest rate since record keeping began. We've got 1.9 million Australians who are either looking for work, or looking for more work because they are underemployed. Business investment is down 20 per cent from when the Liberals came to office, and it is now at its lowest level since the 1990s recession. Consumer confidence and consumption growth are incredibly weak. Weak growth like this is the inevitable result of a government with a political strategy but no economic plan. And what's the government's answer to the challenges which the Australian economy is facing? Quite simply, it's silence. They've no plan to get business investment moving. They've no plan to deal with the deepening drought. In fact, we've seen the National Party backroom revolt going on—entirely politically motivated. They're more concerned about their own political futures than they are about the future of drought-riven communities and more concerned about who takes credit for the woeful policies than about what's going on in those communities that they represent. They've no plan to deal with this at all. There's a lot of noise, but no plan. Instead, the coalition has one answer and one answer only, and that is to continue with their current strategy—which is doing nothing, which means flat growth, flat wages and a decline in confidence.</p><p>It is no wonder that members of the public are rightfully concerned when they see legislation such as this. They are saying: 'What is the real agenda here? What's going on? Why is the government introducing this bill when they haven't dealt with any of these other issues which are affecting wellbeing at the household level?'</p><p>I want to say another thing about the government's management of not only the economy but also the business before this House. As I said at the outset, this bill was in part a response to a recommendation of the Black Economy Taskforce about restricting the use of cash which would then lead to tax avoidance or to money-laundering activities. If only the government were so active in introducing and paying attention to all of the recommendations of the Black Economy Taskforce, because a very important recommendation of the Black Economy Taskforce was on dealing with anti-phoenixing activity. Phoenixing activity is where a business or a set of directors deliberately send a business into liquidation, strip or transfer the assets from that business to another business and leave the creditors stranded, whether they're tradies or small businesses—</p> <p class="speaker">Bob Katter</p><p>Hear, hear!</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Jones</p><p>I see the member for Kennedy is agreeing with me on this point at least. He would know about this. I'm sure there are thousands of small businesses, tradies and creditors in his electorate who have been impacted by this. We know the cost to the economy as a whole is about $5 billion per annum. The cost to small businesses and the cost to creditors is about $3 billion per annum. That is a small business each and every year going to the wall because of the unconscionable phoenixing behaviour of dodgy directors who, time and time and time again, blow their company up, move on down the road and get a slightly different name and a new ABN—maybe it's the same director number or maybe they put their dog down as the director of the new company; that's possible. And the government persists in doing nothing.</p><p>When we saw legislation addressing the Black Economy Taskforce on the forward <i>Notice Paper</i>, we had some hope that they were actually going to do something about this, but it was hope forlorn. They've actually pulled from the agenda this week the legislation purporting to deal with phoenixing. We have to ask why. Why has the government, after having received and sat on the Black Economy Taskforce report for so long, abandoned all hope for those small businesses being left high and dry by dodgy directors and by this government, which can't manage its business and can't manage the legislation before the House? It is now the case that we will have to wait until at least next year before we get some feeble legislation from this government to address the problem of phoenixing in this country. We'll have months of delays, months of unpaid bills to creditors and months of small businesses going to the wall because the government has taken no action against these dodgy developers. If we are going to have legislation before the House which deals with the implementation of the recommendations of the Black Economy Taskforce, let's deal with all of the problems, not just pick at one by one. Let's deal with all of the problems and let's ensure that we provide some relief to those small businesses that are being driven to the wall. If only the government and the hapless Assistant Treasurer could manage their business, perhaps get a bit more influence inside their show, we'd have some proper legislation before this House to deal with this issue.</p><p>We did learn last night in Senate estimates that they are introducing director identification numbers—which, of course, is the real key in this; every Australian has a tax file number. The real key to ensure we crack down on dodgy developers and illegal phoenixing is putting in place a system of director identification numbers. When we quizzed the government, through Senator Hume in Senate estimates last night, they admitted that this was still a priority for government, but obviously it's not a priority for the assistant minister, or it's a priority in name only. Legislation has been pulled on the matter and we are yet to see legislation in this term of government to deal with director ID numbers.</p><p>We're right to be sceptical about the bill before the House today. The community is right to have some concerns, which is why we'll be referring this matter to a Senate inquiry. We invite those members of the community who have concerns to make submissions to that Senate inquiry to ensure that all of those concerns can be adequately dealt with.</p> <p class="speaker">Rob Mitchell</p><p>Is the amendment seconded?</p> <p class="speaker">Jim Chalmers</p><p>I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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