Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I spent this morning speaking with tax experts from universities and accounting firms in conjunction with the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer, the member for Newcastle and other members of the Labor team. We have been talking about the issue of multinational profit shifting. It is a complicated issue which fundamentally comes down to fairness. The question we have, whenever we are considering how to balance the budget in this House, is whether we focus our reforms on those who can afford it or on those who cannot. The problem with this government is that every time they are faced with a choice between slugging someone who can afford it and somebody who cannot, they choose the most vulnerable.

When it comes to superannuation, this government wants to give to people with more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts and has, for the first time in six years, increased the nonconcessional superannuation cap from $150,000 to $180,000. Who is putting more than $150,000 a year into super? Well, probably someone who is a millionaire. So if you have $2 million in your super account, then you have benefited. If you have more than $1 million in earnings, then you have benefited. If you are a millionaire, then this government will put in place not the fair parental leave scheme that we have but an unfair parental leave scheme that will pay you five times as much as a minimum-wage worker. Yet, at the same time, this government is slugging those at the bottom. This government is raising superannuation taxes on the millions of Australians who are earning less than $37,000 a year, two-thirds of whom are women.

The government is taking one dollar in 10 away from the poorest single parents. Do not take my word on that; that is an estimate from NATSEM, Prime Minister's number one modelling firm. According to the Prime Minister's number one modelling firm, the poorest single parents in Australia will lose one-tenth of their income. How would the Prime Minister feel if he were in those shoes? We know how he would feel because we know how he reacted, when he went into opposition, at being forced to live on a backbencher's salary. He thinks it is all right for those earning $60,000 a year to have $6,000 taken out of their pockets while they try to raise a child.

We on this side of the House have a different set of values. We are looking at the issue of multinational profit shifting because we are concerned that multinational firms pay their fair share. Multinational profit shifting is a straightforward problem. It is the fact that firms naturally want to move their revenues to low-cost jurisdictions and their costs to high-cost jurisdictions. Increasingly, as firms are integrating their supply chains and as we have greater vertical integration, the challenge of identifying a market price for items within those supply chains becomes greater and greater. It is a complex area of policy, but the yardstick as to when you are doing something is very simple. If it adds to the budget bottom line, you are serious about multinational profit shifting; if it takes away, you are not serious. Since coming to office, this government has taken $1.1 billion out of the government coffers and given it back to multinationals. It has given it back to some of the best performing firms in the world through measures such as going soft on debt shifting and going soft on offshore banking units.

The government is going to the G20 and saying it is serious about multinational profit shifting. That is music to our ears but, as the old Watergate line goes, 'Follow the money'. Unless they are adding to the budget bottom line, they are not fundamentally serious about multinational profit shifting. We on this side of the House believe that multinationals should pay their fair share and we believe that transparency matters. The Treasurer in the past has been on the record saying that he supports transparency. On 20 September 2014 the Treasurer told The Financial Review:

Supporting greater tax transparency and information exchange is our best weapon to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion right now.

Well, if the Treasurer really believes that, he has a chance to put his words into action. When parliament resumes my private member's bill to bring forward tax transparency will be debated in this parliament. The Treasurer has an opportunity to support that—to bring forward the tax transparency from 2013-14 to 2012-13, to make clear that when the then Assistant Treasurer told The Financial Review in January that he might not proceed with this that he was making it up and that the government believes in tax transparency. (Time expired)

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