James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the second reading amendment to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 7) Bill 2021. Before I address the substance of the bill I will make a few comments based on the contribution of the member who spoke prior to me, the member for Whitlam, who has turned this into a discussion about investing in skills. I'm very happy to have a debate about that and to talk about what our government is doing when it comes to supporting the skilling of Australians, particularly in my home state of South Australia. About 12 months ago I was lucky enough to have the Treasurer come and visit my electorate, soon after the 2020 budget. I think that was October. We had the opportunity to visit a substantial infrastructure project in the heart of my electorate, the Magill Road and Portrush Road intersection. That was a day when a lot of workers were onsite. The Treasurer, the South Australian Premier, the South Australian Minister for Infrastructure and I visited that site to see the progress. We spoke to some of the people working there—the tradespeople in the roles that of course come with a major infrastructure project like that nearly $100 million intersection redevelopment. The message from those workers was, 'Thank you so much for the investment that the Commonwealth and state governments are making in infrastructure projects and the government stimulus expenditure being undertaken.'

That expenditure was being undertaken to support the economy through a difficult period when, because of the challenges of the coronavirus, we had to put in place some necessary health restrictions that meant that large elements of our economy, particularly the private sector elements, were not able to operate to their usual standards. The government stimulus meant that we were able to step in and fill the breach. Respected economic forecasters—the Reserve Bank and Treasury, no less—believed there was potential in this country for unemployment to increase to double digits, over 10 per cent, soon after we had to put the necessary health restrictions in place. Of course, we've seen that that didn't transpire, thankfully—thanks to us as a government and thanks to the people of Australia. The Labor Party seemed very disappointed in that—that we didn't have an extreme increase in unemployment—and now they're complaining in the reverse, for some reason: that we can't get enough skilled workers. Well, that is a problem, but it's a much better problem to have than the other way around, where there are skilled workers who can't get jobs in our economy. I will just reflect on the situation in South Australia when it comes to skills and training, because the member for Whitlam talked about TAFE and talked about apprenticeships and traineeships.

Firstly, the situation has been very bright in South Australia in recent years. We are seeing record increases in the number of apprenticeships and traineeships in the South Australian economy, thanks to the partnership between the Commonwealth and South Australian Liberal governments. But I remember all too well six years ago, around 2015, when the then state Labor government made some debilitating changes to the way in which vocational education and training was funded in my home state of South Australia. It absolutely decimated the industry led registered training organisations—organisations that are best placed to know what the skills shortages are and to train people appropriately for those opportunities in those sectors. I'm talking about organisations like the Motor Traders Association, providing training for motor mechanics; the Australian Hotels Association, training cooks and chefs; and the Civil Contractors Federation, training people in civil engineering and earthmoving et cetera. These are people from the industry with training needs who are very happy if they can have partnerships with government to provide that training for skills that they know their industry needs.

The Labor government in South Australia basically ended that overnight, deciding that it would divert all funding in that sector back into the TAFE network. There's no problem with the TAFE network whatsoever—I see some excellent outcomes from TAFE education—but to say to someone like the AHA, the Civil Contractors Federation or the Motor Traders Association, 'You're not best placed to train people for your industry, even though you've been doing it for decades and decades, and we're going to end the funding that we've provided to you to do that,' was absolutely appalling. We were seeing the impact of that in the poor training outcomes and shortages of key trades and traineeships that were needed for the roles that the industry groups knew their sector needed. That, thankfully, has been changed substantially since we've had a change of government in South Australia. Equally, as a federal government and a state government we're investing record amounts into training. So the whole premise of this second reading amendment couldn't be further from the truth, certainly not in my home state of South Australia.

Equally importantly, there are a couple of key elements to the substance of this bill—which I note those opposite are still supporting—that I want to make some brief remarks on. The first is in schedule 1, bringing in new obligations on the share economy or the gig economy—those businesses that operate third-party platforms that bring people together in a marketplace. Of course, as Liberals we support that and think it's excellent that new technological solutions are being found to create more efficient markets. All of us in in this chamber probably have experiences with a wide variety of platforms that we can now use on our mobile phones to access services. Some of those involve a marketplace where there's a buyer and a seller, and they are just providing the online marketplace and collaboration between a buyer and a seller. They also have all the information that is relevant for the ATO to be able to understand what transactions are happening on those platforms. I think it is really important that we pass this measure to bring in place that obligation to make sure that the ATO is in receipt of that sort of important information which will place the ATO in a position to make sure that it is adequately capturing and has the full view it needs of what's happening in that part of the economy.

Some of these platforms can be hosted offshore, and it's very important that in these changes we make it clear that whether the platform happens to be hosted overseas or in this country, no matter where that is, if they're undertaking transactions in this country there's an obligation to provide the Australian Taxation Office with the sort of information that it needs to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share of tax. As a Liberal I'd like to see as little tax as possible in our economy, but one of the fundamental principles is fairness and that we have a tax system that is as broadly based as possible. That means that the amount of taxation on everyone can be as low as possible. We don't want to have a situation where in this sector of the economy, which is emerging and growing so rapidly, there is a risk that we won't be capturing the fair share of tax that is obliged to be paid under Australian laws by people operating on those platforms. It may be at times that some aren't fully aware of their tax obligations, and the ATO is very good at working with people to understand what their obligations are. But we want to make sure the ATO gets access to this important information so that they can do their job in this section of the economy like they do in the rest of our economy. This is no different from what happens in the bricks-and-mortar businesses, which have those obligations. We want to make sure the same obligations are in place in the gig economy and the virtual economy. My understanding is that in the EU and the UK very similar measures are being put in place in their tax codes, and I'm sure this is something that we will see replicated by and large across the planet.

These major platforms can be resistant to individual governments putting in place necessary measures for us to properly collect our fair share of tax and also understand what sorts of transactions are happening in our economies. Sometimes they claim that these burdens are high on them, because they aren't the same requirements in other jurisdictions and they've got to change the way they might operate their platform in one jurisdiction or the other. Well, the evidence seems clear that this is going to be happening across the globe. Frankly, these platforms are doing very well—and good luck to them; they're making a lot of money—but in no way, shape or form is it acceptable for them to believe that they don't have the same responsibility, if they're going to operate in our economy, to make sure that they're providing the sort of information that other businesses are required to provide in order to make sure we are adequately taxing transactions out there in the marketplace.

Schedule 2 covers the repeal of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal or the shift of jurisdiction over those complaints from that tribunal to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA, who I had a little bit to do with via some constituent matters in my first few years in this place. I think it's very sensible to have this sort of efficiency and move this process into AFCA. These changes in schedule 2 effectively fix the tail end of that transition, which has already occurred. My understanding is that there are two elements to this. One is that there are a couple of matters that are still outstanding and did originate in the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. It is clear in the legislation that, for the purposes of those outstanding matters, they now come back to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Of course, all the work that was done by the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal—all the records that they've kept et cetera—should be appropriately transferred across to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. If they're going to be providing this mechanism into the future, it of course makes perfect sense that they hold the records of the agency that previously undertook that.

In schedule 3 we have what I think has been described as some sensible house cleaning around the $250 prescribed education expense deduction. My understanding is that this is a measure that was brought in way back in 1975. It relates to self-education expenses and the threshold before you can claim deductions that equally these days are simply offset by other expenses against that threshold. This just makes it a lot easier for people to do their tax return, because they don't have to provide all this information that is now, in many cases, highly unnecessary given people are not receiving the deductibility for that first amount but equally are claiming other deductions against that amount. It's effectively netting out to nothing. My understanding is that this will come into effect in the 2022-23 tax year, and it's just a sensible way making life easier for people who are undertaking self-education. They won't have this unnecessary complexity in their tax returns when they are lodging them. They won't have to deal with what is a very significant legacy going back all the way to 1975.

Having made at the beginning of my remarks those comments about skills and training, I reiterate that we are a government that is passionate about investing in skilling Australians and making sure that we are training Australians—young Australians in particular—for the job opportunities of the future. There are skills shortages in this country right now. One of those reasons is that, of course, we don't have the skilled migration intake being undertaken, but another one is that this government is investing so comprehensively in infrastructure and in stimulating our economy. That, of course, is doing what it's meant to do, which is creating jobs. It is a problem to have skills shortages, but it is a much better problem to have skills shortages than to have high unemployment—people with skills who can't get a job.

Nonetheless, we will make sure that as a government we continue to invest in training our next generation. We will keep working with the industry sectors to understand from them what the current requirements for training are and what the requirements of the future will be, because there are exciting emerging industries that will need tens of thousands of trained workers into the future. In my home state the defence sector is a very good example of that, where we have made significant decisions to invest in naval shipbuilding, centred in Adelaide. There will be thousands if not 10,000 or more jobs in naval shipbuilding over the years to come across the country—centred in Adelaide but across the country—throughout the supply chains, which will be in every state and territory. Those are going to require existing skills, but there will be skills that are not yet in our economy that we will need to train people in, because they are new roles that are providing an exciting future for the next generation of Australians.

On that note, I commend the bill to the House and I thank the Treasurer and everyone who has done such excellent work more broadly on these budget measures. I'm proud to be a part of a government that is investing in skilling the next generation of young Australians.

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