Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I as minister have specific responsibility for this. The Rudd government and the international community have taken seriously the tax havens issue. The government has funded Project Wickenby at a cost of $430 million through to 2012-13. It is a multiagency task force aimed at detecting, deterring and dealing with haven abuse and sends a clear message that the Rudd government is responding to abusive secrecy haven schemes. Since the impact of the global financial crisis, the international community has taken unprecedented steps to stamp out tax havens and international tax abuse, and Australia has fully supported the countermeasures and sanctions against the non-cooperative jurisdictions that were agreed at the G20 leaders meeting in April 2009. These actions will mark the end of the era of bank secrecy that damaged public finances and put at risk the financial system.

Australia was also elected the inaugural chair of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in September of this year, in part because the Rudd government has strongly advocated improvements in tax transparency and addressing the abusive use of tax havens. As the Global Forum chair, Australia will be leading and pushing hard to see the new agreed tax transparency peer review system rapidly put in place. That way, we can collectively move forward with ensuring our developing country partners can meet global standards and also collect their fair share of domestic tax revenue.

The Rudd government has been proactive in negotiating tax agreements with low-tax jurisdictions. To date Australia has signed nine tax information exchange agreements with other jurisdictions, including eight I have personally signed, and the pace with which these jurisdictions are coming on board is speeding up. Australia has now signed agreements with Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, Netherlands Atilles, British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Guernsey and the Cook Islands. This rapidly growing network of agreements reflects the Rudd government’s leadership in the widespread implementation of international standards of tax transparency and information exchange.