Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) | Hansard source

This package of bills contains seven measures, most contained wholly within the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Tax Integrity and Supporting Business Investment) Bill 2022. Schedule 1 gives the tax office the discretion to require business owners to complete a record-keeping course rather than pay a financial penalty when an entity has failed to comply with its tax related record-keeping obligations. This implements one of the government's responses to the Black Economy Taskforce report, which recommended that the ATO be given a broad range of appropriate administrative penalties for record-keeping breaches.

Schedule 2 relates to the income tax and withholding exemptions for the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023. This will provide tax exemptions for FIFA and related entities for specific periods in relation to hosting the 2023 World Cup. It's worth noting that a similar exemption was given to the International Cricket Council for the T20 World Cup that was held recently in Australia. Provision of these exemptions was a commitment made as part of Australia's successful bid to co-host the Women's World Cup.

Schedule 3 allows businesses to self-assess the depreciation schedule of certain intangible depreciating assets, primarily intellectual property rights, rather than using the statutory effective life in working out the decline in value. The types of assets to which this would apply include copyright licences, patents, spectrum licences and software licences. This was a commitment made by the government in the 2021 budget as a part of their Digital Economy Strategy. It will provide a significant tax benefit for entities that can take advantage of that self-assessment and would cost approximately $170 million over two financial years.

The government has not provided any costings as to the long-term tax impacts of these changes—and it does come with a significant budget cost—and the benefits of this change haven't been made clear. Labor won't oppose these measures and the ones contained in the rest of the bill, but we know that it does come at a significant cost to the budget—and again, none of that cost appears to have been offset by the government in their measures relating to this.

Schedule 4 amends the Australian Consumer Law and related legislation to implement reforms relating to unfair contract terms for consumers and small businesses. Unfair contract terms are often used by larger businesses in relation to smaller businesses and consumers as they lack the bargaining power to negotiate and review terms in standard-form contracts. Existing unfair contract term provisions provide that where a court finds that a contract is unfair then that term of the contract is declared void. A number of reviews have shown that this particular operation of the law doesn't provide deterrence against the use of unfair contracts. Labor has repeatedly called for improvements to unfair contract term legislation in the past, and those particular reforms reflect commitments made by the Assistant Treasurer nearly two years ago.

It's interesting that the government are willing to look at unfair contract term provisions for small businesses when it comes to their negotiations and their dealings with larger businesses yet are unwilling, when it comes to workers, to look at ensuring that protections are in place for workers to collectively bargain and protect themselves against exploitation through unfair contract terms in workplace relations legislation. In this parliament in the past we moved to protect small business operators, particularly those who work in the transport sector—small-business truck drivers, lorry drivers and the like—who had set up their own businesses and were running contracts for carriage. When we put unfair contract terms into workplace legislation to ensure that those workers couldn't be exploited, particularly around terms in contracts that require them to work unsafe hours, to drive excessive hours, to operate their vehicles unsafely—when those provisions were entered into the industrial legislation of this parliament—those opposite opposed it. They ran a campaign against it and eventually, when they were elected to government, they removed those provisions for safe rates and for safe contract carriage for truck drivers throughout this country.

We know that that sort of legislation works because it's been in state based legislation, most notably in New South Wales. The 1996 Industrial Relations Act in New South Wales was one of the best pieces of workplace legislation that the country had ever had because it had 'unfair contract terms' within it and it provided the ability for small businesses and workers that were subject to contract provisions in their contract of employment to seek remedies and to seek an unfair declaration in the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission when they were forced into contracts where they had no bargaining power and were operating at a distinct disadvantage and the court found the terms to be unfair. That stopped a lot of those bigger companies that had forced truck drivers into unsafe terms and conditions for contracts of carriage. That legislation worked. It was pacesetting, it was ground-breaking and it worked. It provided a fairer system of workplace relations laws in this country.

When we did it at a federal level, those opposite ran a campaign against it. Instead of siding with small business operators, they sided with big business, as they always do. They overruled those provisions and they had them removed from the law. That was a great shame. But here we are once again. Now they have worked out that there are many small businesses for whom, despite having 'unfair contract terms' in the law, that's not enough. This new law will expand the definition of small business to a business employing fewer than 100 persons or with a turnover of less than $10 million. It will allow courts to impose penalties for use of unfair contract terms. It will allow courts to make orders in relation to contracts and collateral agreements relating to unfair contract terms. It will allow the regulators—the ACCC and ASIC—to apply to prevent the use of substantially similar unfair contract terms in future standard form contracts. And it will allow courts to make injunctions restraining businesses from using a similar term in a future contract or relying on a similar term in an existing contract.

The provisions also expand the definition of a standard form contract and exclude certain specific categories of contracts in the unfair contract term provisions, including the operating rules for licensed financial markets and settlement facilities.

Schedule 5 provides for the tax exempt treatment of grants paid by the government to businesses in relation to Cyclone Seroja, which impacted Western Australia in April 2021.

Schedule 6 of the related Income Tax Amendment (Labour Mobility Program) Bill will reduce the effective tax rate on certain income earned by certain foreign agricultural workers who are not residents of Australia for tax purposes and who are currently taxed at 32½ per cent from their first dollar of income. The measure changes the rate that workers participating in the Australian Agriculture Worker Program or the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme would pay to 15 per cent. The Australian Agriculture Worker Program, as we all know, was established in August 2021 through the Migration Amendment (Australian Agriculture Worker) Regulations to provide available accessible visas to workers in agricultural industries.

This has been brought about by the severe shortage of skills and labour that we have seen in the agricultural sector throughout the country. A lot of it derives from the fact that, unfortunately, there are many Australians that don't want to work in this industry because the wages and conditions have been so low for so long compared to other industries. Australians can work in other industries, without the backbreaking work, for much more money. Unfortunately, that's what they've been doing. So the government has had to act with these measures around foreign workers.

The Pacific Australian Labour Mobility scheme is set to commence on 4 April 2022 and will be administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Let's hope that we don't see some of the cases of exploitation under this program that we have seen in the past with the Pacific labour worker scheme program, where workers from the Pacific islands could come to Australia and be basically indentured to an employer and forced to work, in some circumstances, in shocking conditions. Threats of sending them back home or taking their visas off them were often used in those circumstances to ensure people were exploited. That's unconscionable. We must make sure that that cannot happen again under the Pacific Australian Labour Mobility scheme. As I said, that measure was announced in the 2021-22 MYEFO; and the combined impact of these new visa programs is expected to increase receipts by $165 million over the forward estimates period, including through increased GST receipts.

Schedule 7 contains a series of minor and technical amendments to various laws in the Treasury, Social Services and Veterans Affairs' portfolios. I intend to move a second reading amendment to this particular bill at the conclusion of my speech. That amendment will prioritise the passage of vital legislation to promote integrity in the financial sector, including through implementing the findings of the banking royal commission. After yet another wasted three years in office, it is clear that the Morrison government's commitment to implementing those important recommendations of the banking royal commission remain in question. To the great disadvantage of Australian consumers, they have consistently watered down many of Commissioner Hayne's recommendations. This includes moving to undermine the commissioner's very first recommendation, which was to keep in place the responsible lending laws in this country. During the course of this parliament, we've seen the Morrison government attempt to water down that No. 1 recommendation. They tried to get rid of the responsible lending laws that were put in place by the Gillard and Rudd governments in the wake of the global financial crisis to protect Australian consumers against financial exploitation and some of the unconscionable financial practices that we were seeing in the US, which, unfortunately, came into Australia. That led to the development of the Future of Financial Advice legislation, which led to Australia having to call a royal commission into banking and financial services because of the unconscionable practices that were being undertaken by certain entities and certain individuals within the financial sector.

And they weren't isolated cases, unfortunately. They were serious cases of financial fraud, perpetrated on Australians, for which they had no protection. A classic example was that, prior to the FOFA legislation introduced by the previous Labor government, there was no requirement in Australia for financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients. And guess what? They didn't! They were putting their clients into products where they had conflicts of interest. The financial advisers were receiving kickbacks in the form of commissions that were built into the financial products, which were not in the best interests of the consumers. A lot of the time, many of those consumers were mortgaging their houses to go into these financial products. And when they all fell over, especially around the time of the global financial crisis, millions of Australians lost the lot. They were left in a position of having to rely on government payments into the future or relying on public housing, renting or family members to get by.

The Morrison government, as I said, tried to water down those responsible lending obligations. Thankfully, Labor opposed them; and the Senate opposed them as well and wouldn't let them get away with it. But the fact is that the Morrison government have always fought to reduce any cost of wrongdoing in the financial sector. I will never forget the strong protections ordinary Australians deserve and expect. The Morrison government were in denial before the Hayne royal commission, and now they're in denial of the detailed findings and clear recommendations of that royal commission. And we all know they never wanted the royal commission in the first place. They voted against a royal commission in the parliament 26 times. That was a pretty clear indicator of whose side you were on, who you were backing when it came to financial fraud and the malpractice that was going on in financial services in this country. They weren't backing consumers, they weren't backing the victims; they were backing the banks and the businesses that were perpetrating this wrongdoing on Australians. They finally succumbed to community pressure and agreed to a royal commission, but only after the bank CEOs had written to the then Prime Minister of the time, Malcolm Turnbull, and said: 'Yes, it's okay to have a royal commission. We can't cop the criticism anymore. We don't want the reputational damage anymore. It's okay to agree to a royal commission.' It was only after that that we finally got that royal commission that uncovered what we all knew about: the decade of rip-off and scandal that had been going on that left many Australians worse off. This was a blatant case of rip-offs and scams, a well-known issue that had been raised well before the royal commission in reports by ASIC, APRA and other consumer groups.

But the Liberals—the Morrison government—still resisted. They held out as long as they could. As I said, it was only after they got the tick from the big banks that they went ahead with it. We have seen yet again that they have continued to downplay a lot of the findings of that royal commission, and it's no surprise that we see now some of those financial institutions, after we had that round of reform, starting to dip their toes in the water again around financial incentives for branch staff to maximise lending. They're starting to look to incentivise their branch staff to push financial products onto their customers once again. This was the practice that was exposed by the banking royal commission as eroding consumer protections. We've now seen that in some banks staff must now achieve sales targets within certain time frames to be promoted to roles with higher pay grades, and staff who fail to meet those targets are reportedly put on performance plans, which can be used as justification for termination. A senior lecturer at the University of Wollongong in financial services, Andy Schmulow, has said that these sales targets reward staff for increasing customer indebtedness and directly contradict the banks' duty to prioritise customer welfare. He has pointed out that it's exactly 'the sales culture that Commissioner Hayne specifically referred to as promoting greed and customer disadvantage'. Has nothing been learnt from the banking royal commission? We need to be vigilant about these practices creeping back in, and we should never forget that we had the global financial crisis. We became lax in the wake of that when this government was elected, and we started to see some of that financial fraud take off once again. So we must be vigilant.

In other key areas, the Morrison government has also been backsliding on the royal commission. In 2019 Commissioner Hayne recommended a compensation scheme of last resort for investors who had been ripped off by financial misconduct. The government pledged to implement one, but, here we are, in the last three days, and they still haven't implemented it. It still hasn't gone through the parliament. The Prime Minister first pledged to introduce a scheme almost five years ago, following the recommendations of the Ramsay review, and last year the Treasurer put legislation into the parliament to establish the scheme. So there's no excuse for another hold-up, and no other reason than incompetence from this government in not getting this important legislation through before the end of this parliament. Labor has reaffirmed its support for these bills and is calling on the government to work with us to pass them as quickly as possible. Once again, has the government not learned from the banking royal commission?

It certainly seems this is also the case also when it comes to funeral insurance. The Morrison government has left thousands of the victims of the Youpla ACBF funeral insurance collapse in the lurch as well. We know that the impact of that collapse is particularly acute for First Nations communities. Many in First Nations communities were exploited by companies like this and took out funeral insurance where, over the lifetime of the policy, the cost of the premiums ends up being more than the benefit that was gained from the actual cost of the funeral that was paid for by the insurance. The financial devastation that has caused is wide and steep: 17,000 people who can least afford it have lost thousands of dollars, and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2019 Labor wrote to the Treasurer asking him to look at those funeral insurance schemes. We warned them of a deep financial distress that was being caused to First Nations communities, and the communities themselves have pleaded with the Treasurer in person. Yet for more than two years the Treasurer and the government have ignored those calls to protect vulnerable citizens and offer them a remedy for the victims of this financial fraud.

The inaction has turned the problem into a crisis. In keeping with the Morrison government's track record, it's all talk, no action and no delivery when it comes to the commitments they made to the Australian people. It is now time for the Prime Minister to urgently address the despair and devastation that his inaction has brought those who were impacted by that company—in particular, First Nations communities.

We also know that for two years the Prime Minister has stood by and watched as scams have exploded across Australia's social media platforms and mobile phones. He's ignored Labor's calls to establish an anti-scam centre to coordinate a response to these insidious crimes, that now cost the economy $33 billion every year and are growing, and he's ignored its calls to hold social media platforms to account for the false and deceptive material they disseminate to unsuspecting Australian families.

We welcomed the news that the ACCC is now investigating Facebook, with a view to possible court action, over scams perpetrated on their platform, and we welcome Rod Sims's observations that Facebook knowingly allowed false and misleading observation on its platform and it could have done more to take down that material. But this is not new. The Prime Minister's passive approach to emerging problems has cost many Australian workers and families dearly. His inactions have made Australian homes and small businesses soft targets for scams, while countries like the UK and Canada have seen real results from tackling this problem head on.

That's why Labor recently announced its 'scam buster' policy that will establish a new anti-scam centre, bringing together law enforcement regulators, banks and telcos to share real-time data about emerging threats. We'll introduce tough new industry codes on social media companies, telcos and banks to hold them to account for stopping the spread of scams on their platforms, and double funding for identity recovery services to help scam victims get their lives back on track. We'll also task a minister with direct responsibility for proactively tackling and taking on scammers.

In conclusion, when it comes to financial services, when it comes to ensuring integrity in Australian financial services, there have been many wasted opportunities by this government. They said that they were giving priority to the royal commission recommendations, in implementing them before this parliament ended. Here we are, with two days to go, and they are yet to deliver on a number of important reforms that were indicated by the royal commission—most notably, the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort, which is designed to ensure that people who have been victims of financial fraud and unable to afford justice through the court system have some form of recompense for the wrongdoing that was perpetrated to them by unconscionable conduct in the financial services sector. That hasn't been delivered, and it looks like we'll struggle to get that through in the remaining days of this parliament. That's a broken commitment to the people of Australia but is not an isolated case, unfortunately.

There are broken commitments in every policy area from this government when it comes to promises that have been made to the Australian people. We'll never forget the promise that Australia was at the front of the queue when it came to vaccines. That didn't last long. We found out that it was a mistruth perpetrated by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said that we'd ordered enough rapid antigen tests to ensure that Australians would be safe, over the summer period, if we relaxed a lot of those restrictions and conditions that the states had in place. That's what they did, and guess what? COVID ran rampant. We were unprepared. The Australian public were misled by the Prime Minister. And over the course of the last few weeks we've had this terrible flooding in the north of New South Wales and South-East Queensland. Once again, it's been proven that this government did not prepare for the effects of climate change in supporting those communities.

When we had a royal commission into disaster responses in this country, they recommended further investment in mitigation infrastructure, using the money in the Emergency Response Fund. There's $4.7 billion in that response fund, and not one cent's been spent on any mitigation infrastructure. They've used it as a financial bank account to earn interest. There is $800 million worth of interest, but not one cent's been spent on the Australian public and protecting those communities. And what do we get? We get the devastation that we've seen in Lismore, Mullumbimby and other places, and a Prime Minister that can't walk down the street because he knows he's going to be abused by the Australian public for his weak and insipid response to that disaster. When the Australian Prime Minister can't walk down their street and talk to the Australian people, it's time to give someone else a go. It's time to work out that your time has come and it's time to give someone else a go. That's why Anthony Albanese was up there, weeks ago, talking to the Australian people. He had no problem walking down the street, seeing and hearing the stories of those Australians that have been suffering. He had no problem making sure that commitments were made for Labor to invest in a disaster relief fund and invest in that mitigation infrastructure in the future to protect those communities.

In conclusion, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to:

(1) prioritise the passage of vital legislation to promote integrity in the financial sector, including through implementing the findings of the Banking Royal Commission;

(2) do more to support women's sport in every region of the country, without consideration to political boundaries;

(3) protect the rights of all workers in Australia, including migrants;

(4) improve economic relationships with Pacific nations;

(5) promote innovation by enhancing education and investment in skills, including through our TAFE and tertiary sectors;

(6) support Australians suffering from natural disasters and enhance disaster mitigation;

(7) protect Australian small businesses from unfair practices; and

(8) provide real cost of living relief to Australian families through wages growth and genuine economic reform".

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