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representatives vote 2020-06-16#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2020-07-10 14:13:17
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Title
Bills — Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019; Consideration of Senate Message- Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019 - Consideration of Senate Message - Disagree with Senate amendments
Description
<p class="speaker">Ben Morton</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the House insists on disagreeing to the amendments insisted on by the Senate.</p>- The majority voted in favour of "*insist[ing] on disagreeing to the amendments insisted on by the Senate.*" This means that the bill will now return once more to the Senate. If the Senate agrees to *not* insist on their amendments, the bill can become law. However, if the Senate insists on them, the bill won't succeed.
<p class="speaker">Stephen Jones</p><p>We disagree with the proposition put by the government. Quite simply, for the second time this week, the Senate has voted in favour of corporate transparency and, for the second time this week, the House of Representatives has been asked to concur. All Labor members of the House concur with the Senate. I understand that members of the crossbench also concur with the Senate, and so they should. It is important at any time that incorporated bodies have transparent reportage of financial arrangements. It is important at any time, but, in the midst of a financial crisis, with such economic uncertainty, it is more important than ever.</p><p>These provisions, when inserted in the act 25 years ago, were a part of a temporary and transitional arrangement. They were supposed to be reviewed. They were not. They were supposed to be transitioned to be removed out. They were not. They apply to in excess of 1,000 very large corporate organisations, some of the biggest private companies in the country. We say that we should be removing this anomaly which applies one set of rules to some private companies and a different set of rules to other private companies. It's an unlevel playing field that those members opposite should be supporting Labor in having removed.</p><p>When this matter was last before the House, there were three government members in the chamber. There was the member for Forde, a former financial planner. I fully expected him to jump and concur with Labor in defence of the financial planners, whose interests are being compromised by the fact that this bill is in deadlock, but there has not been a word from the member for Forde. There was the member for Goldstein, who finds it incredibly difficult to remain silent on any matter as soon as he's awake, but there has not been a word from the member from Goldstein. It fell to the assistant minister, the member for Petrie, to run the defence for the government. We were waiting with baited breath to hear what possible public interest reason the government could be advancing to have one set of rules apply to some corporate entities and another set of rules—a much more stringent set of reporting rules—to others.</p><p>Unable to articulate the public interest reasoning for having two sets of rules, he tabled a document. I've managed to obtain a copy of the document, and it reads as follows: 'The issue raised by this amendment is the subject of a recommendation in the Senate economic committee's report <i>Corporate Tax Avoidance Part 1: You cannot tax what you cannot see</i>. The reason we reject it is that the House will not pre-empt the government's response to this recommendation as a part of its response to the Senate economic committee's corporate tax avoidance report.' Members of the House might be interested to know when this report was tabled. Maybe it was last year. Maybe it was the year before. Maybe it was the year before that. No, it was August 2015. Students of this place know that's three prime ministers and three treasurers ago. We've been waiting a long time for this response. There can be no justification for further delay.</p><p>This amendment has been recommended by the corporate regulator, who has found as follows:</p><p class="italic">The lack of availability of public financial reports reduces transparency about possible indicators of tax avoidance or tax minimisation.</p><p>So, when we ask again, 'What possible reason could members opposite have for rejecting this amendment that's been put and rejected?' the only conclusion we can find is they are protecting their corporate mates and their corporate tax avoidance. There can be no other reason. Perhaps, as has been put elsewhere, there are large donors to the Liberal Party who find themselves on this list. I hope that is not the reason. I expect that the assistant minister at the table will leap to their defence and articulate a plausible public reason for why the rules should not be altered, and, if he's unable to do that, he should join with the crossbenchers and Labor and accept the message from the Senate. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Rebekha Sharkie</p><p>I will keep my comments very brief. I find it extraordinary that the government wants to send the message to the community that there should be one set of rules that apply to the super rich in Australia and another set of rules that apply to the rest of us. That is quite simply what this amendment seeks to do—to change what is currently existing so there's not one set of rules for the super rich and one for the rest of us. There is no public interest reason for the government not to support this amendment.</p><p>I think it's rather childish if the whole purpose of the government not supporting this amendment is simply because it isn't an idea of government. This place is supposed to be the contest of ideas. All good ideas should come up from this, and, if it's a good idea that the majority of the place supports, like what happened in the Senate, then the government should take that idea and champion it. But what's happened twice now is that, because the government have the majority numbers in this chamber, they have not supported a very sensible amendment simply because it's not their amendment. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019 is a good idea. We can't allow in Australia one set of rules for the rich and one for the rest of us.</p><p>I implore the government: don't allow this to be the hill that you want to die on—on this issue in Australia now. Our community wants transparency. They don't want to see the richest people in Australia getting to hide their information, particularly when ASIC has been very clear that it believes that this rule should be overturned. I would urge the government, in the strongest possible terms, to accept this amendment. This is a good amendment for Australia.</p> <p class="speaker">Daniel Mulino</p><p>I rise to support the comments made by the shadow Assistant Treasurer and the member for Mayo in arguing against the motion that's just been put on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019. I'm going to begin my observations by misquoting Oscar Wilde and say that to reject a sound amendment once is unfortunate, but to reject it twice is careless.</p><p>We're finding ourselves here again, debating the most simple of propositions and we are going to see speaker after speaker raise very sensible public policy reasons why one of the foundational elements of the regulation of the financial sector—transparency—should be applied on a level playing field, and there will be not a word from those opposite—not a word. We've had what can only be described as a very lame document provided, as I think the shadow Treasurer may have said, in Marcel Marceau fashion. In the dead of night a document was passed across the chamber which said, 'We will get back to you on our reasons for rejecting this very sound amendment multiple times when we respond to a report that was lodged years ago.' This is government at glacier pace. This is not something that warrants multiple years of consideration.</p><p>Let's start with the basic proposition here—transparency. This is something I would hope people across the aisle could agree with: transparency is absolutely foundational to our regulation of the financial services sector. The royal commission highlighted this. The royal commission was something which we on this side had to drag those on the other side, kicking and screaming, into agreeing to. But, once it was established, it demonstrated with absolute crystal clarity why it is so important that we expose our financial services sector to transparency and why that transparency should be comprehensive and applied throughout on a level playing field. I'm on the House economics committee. Time and time again, we see the results of that royal commission played out and the damage that has been done to individuals throughout our society because organisations weren't held to account through transparent regimes.</p><p>As earlier speakers have noted, this is a measure brought in as a temporary measure a quarter of a century ago. So that's only a small amount of time longer than this government is taking to respond to a straightforward report that was tabled many years ago. It is nonsensical that this measure, this exemption, is not being removed when it has been subject to such a sensible amendment. This exemption creates a two-tiered system without any public policy rationale, and the two-tiered system means that some of our country's wealthiest individuals, through proprietary companies, are not having to report to ASIC in a way that other companies are. It's creating a two-tiered system with a completely arbitrary cut-off. Those companies that were on the list in 1995 don't have to report to ASIC; those after 1995 do. There is absolutely no public policy rationale for this distinction. In fact, it is such an absurd situation that even when companies want to remove themselves from the list, even when they don't want the exemption to apply to them, it's impossible for that to occur. Malcolm Turnbull tried to get his company removed from the exemption and that couldn't happen. That's one of the few actions he's taken in recent years that I support, but it was blocked by his own government.</p><p>In government, we proposed getting rid of this exemption for companies with turnovers of more than $100 million. The coalition overturned that change. That was on the basis, in part, of the fact that some proprietary companies could face kidnapping or commercial disadvantage. So again, as I mentioned yesterday, this is the absurdity of where we are at the moment. Those opposite, to the extent that they have laid out any policy rationale for this distinction, seem to imagine that kidnappers have some exhaustive record of ASIC records and when companies were formed or when they got different exemptions or not. This is a bizarre situation that has absolutely no justification on public policy grounds.</p><p>What we face here today is that the Senate is sending back a very sensible amendment which the Senate has passed twice now. It is an amendment that stands on its own merits, but it's also an amendment that aligns with broader objectives of transparency that should be more important than ever. As the shadow Assistant Treasurer said, at times like this, transparency is more important than ever, particularly after all that we've seen coming out of the royal commission. We should support this amendment.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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