Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I think the member for Mackellar's intervention bespeaks the keenness for him to speak on the side of the debate for why the bill should be brought forward and debated in accordance with the Notice Paper. He has obviously got a lot of interest and knowledge on the bill and on the subject matter of multinational tax avoidance. I would welcome an intervention from the member for Mackellar at the appropriate point in time if this bill were brought on for debate. But, unfortunately, in a short moment I'm quite confident that the member for Mackellar, alongside each and every one of the members opposite, is going to vote to ensure that we don't get the opportunity to do that, to ensure that we don't get the opportunity not only to make a speech in the second reading debate but to examine the bill in detail. He has obviously got a lot of questions and a lot of issues that he wants to ventilate on this bill.

It probably would interest the member for Mackellar to know that company after company has been exposed paying zero tax on their Australian operations, including some impoverished entities and some really struggling multinational corporations, such as Goldman Sachs, Shell and IBM.

In fact, under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison-Truss-Joyce—weren't they golden eras!—and now McCormack government, as many as one-third of all large companies paid no income tax at all. In fact, data issued by the Australian tax office in December of last year showed that, out of 2,214 large companies, as many as 710 of them paid no tax whatsoever in the year 2017-18. The member for McKellar asks out of order why we say the number is much closer to $13 billion than the tax office's estimate of $2 billion. It's because of that very number. It's because of that very number—and we're not talking about corner shops here: 710 companies pay no tax whatsoever. That includes 102 firms reporting more than $1 billion in total income. I want you to contrast that to the average single Australian worker, who pays 25 per cent of their income in taxes. Large companies earning over a billion dollars average tax payments of only two per cent of their income. I can't think of a more important thing for us to be debating right now, but these members opposite want to debate anything else. They want to play silly parlour games when speaking to the motion.

A government member interjecting—

The member asked me to speak to the motion. We are arguing that these are the matters that should be debated. We should not be postponing this bill, because it is of vital importance to every member in this place—$13 billion worth of unpaid taxes, over 700 companies paying no tax whatsoever, 102 firms who earn more than a billion dollars in total income and yet they pay no tax. Somehow those opposite think that's okay. We on this side of the House don't think it's okay; we think it's a matter of national urgency. Like the minister who introduced this bill into the House, we think we should be debating it today.

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