House debates

Monday, 15 June 2020

Bills

Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019; Consideration of Senate Message

12:12 pm

Photo of Daniel MulinoDaniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love the fact that those opposite aren't speaking at all on the substance of this. The only contribution in Hansardon this debate from those opposite will be correcting the reference to the senator. That's fine; I will refer to the senator by his name.

Mr Howarth interjecting

I look forward to seeing the strong defence from the assistant minister opposite on why this exemption should continue. I look forward to seeing a very strong defence from him on that.

As the shadow Assistant Treasurer pointed out, there is a strong onus on those opposite to explain why this exemption should continue. It is an exemption that doesn't make any sense. It is an exemption that was only meant to be temporary, but it's 25 years later and we are still discussing it.

As earlier speakers on this side have pointed out, in government we proposed getting rid of companies with turnovers of more than $100 million from this list. The coalition in concert with the Greens overturned that change on the basis that it could lead to kidnapping or other unintended consequences. Well, if that is a genuine argument in favour of the exemption, one has to wonder why it applies to only a subset of companies that managed to somehow fall into this exemption prior to 1995 but not those after. Presumably kidnappers are somehow aware of when companies fell into or out of this exemption. This is a group of kidnappers who are extremely familiar with corporation regulations and have easy access to ASIC records. It is a bizarre argument.

Frankly, it is a two-tiered system that no longer works. The member for Mayo pointed out that where you have a two-tiered system there has to be a very good reason for it. Surely the presumption in our tax laws, as in any laws, should be that everyone is treated equally. This is an exemption that was only meant to be temporary. It is an exemption that should be removed. It is an exemption that is resulting in a whole raft of companies not being subject to the transparency that companies as a whole are. Transparency, it has been shown, is one of the key regulatory mechanisms that underpin the effectiveness of regulating our financial services sector. The banking royal commission, which we had called for 28 times before it finally arrived, showed that. It is time that the law reflects the benefits of transparency by removing this exemption.

Comments

No comments