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

he's doing his own very best to engage with and improve relations with our friends in Micronesia. I'm told he hasn't had a bowl of kava since!

But, seriously, there's a lot of work going on to support businesses. For these reasons and others, we won't be agreeing to the schedule 1 amendments that have been moved by the opposition. I do note they're uncosted. They're on the one hand criticising how much the government spends but on the other hand encouraging us to spend even more, through uncosted proposed amendments. The same goes for the member for Warringah, who has, I should say, genuinely engaged with us on it. I thank her and respectfully say that we won't be agreeing to those amendments, but we're always willing to engage with members of this place on their propositions. The government's measures have been carefully targeted to support small businesses, and the investments are where they're most needed. We think they stand on their own merits. The bill's been referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, and the government looks forward to hearing the recommendations of that committee.

I'll just briefly address some of the lesser-focused-on schedules to the bill. Schedule 3 provides a pathway for 28 community foundations to be endorsed as deductible gift recipients. I want to thank Dr Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, for the great work that he's done in this area, truly reforming the way we deal with these sorts of issues. This will encourage philanthropic support for these foundations and contribute to the government's goal of doubling philanthropic giving by 2030.

Schedule 4 of the bill amends the income tax law to specifically list Justice Reform Initiative Ltd and Transparency International Australia as deductible gift recipients and extends the existing listing of the Australian Sports Foundation Charitable Fund and the Victoria Pride Centre to DGR status. Can I just say in relation to Justice Reform Initiative Ltd that I had the great pleasure of speaking to a former member of this place, Robert Tickner, when he was in parliament yesterday. He's playing a pivotal role in driving some of those initiatives. I commend the great work that he's doing in trying to build a coalition of support for these initiatives, which is around diversion programs and justice reinvestment programs. It's a broad coalition reaching across the political spectrum and working with former police commissioners and other eminent Australians to try and shift the dial on what we're doing in this area. I'm delighted that we're able to do something to assist that great organisation by providing DGR status for them as well.

Schedule 5 of the bill extends the Global Infrastructure Hub's income tax exemption for an additional year, to 30 June 2024, to avoid subjecting funding contributions from G20 members to income tax. That would be a perverse outcome.

Schedule 6 of the bill amends the income tax law with respect to general insurance. This is about more than deregulation and removing red tape. It's about removing unnecessary red tape by ensuring we have an alignment between accounting and tax and avoid unnecessary tax compliance burdens on the general insurance industry. There will be no impact on tax collected or tax burden, but it's about ensuring from an accounting point of view that those standards are aligned.

Schedule 7 of the bill introduces new arrangements for non-arms-length expenses rules for superannuation entities. The measure replaces the current rules for general expenses and better targets the application of these provisions. This will maintain the broader integrity of the superannuation tax system while addressing the potential for disproportionate outcomes.

I know the Senate committee had some discussion about this. What seems to have escaped some members of the committee, but not all of them, is that what we're providing through these measures is relief to the superannuation sector. All of the superannuation sector is getting relief from this, an otherwise disproportionate penalty regime and disproportionate accounting and record-keeping regime—which would be visited upon them—and relief from the risk of measures involved in non-arms-length expenditure.

This schedule is also about deregulation and removing red tape where it adds no integrity benefit. It has missed the attention of many in the other place who are protesting against it. This is actually a deregulation measure. If we don't do it—if we don't pass it—an even more onerous burden will fall upon entities within the superannuation sector due to rulings that have been pronounced by the independent tax commissioner in this area. It's a dereg measure and important that we do it.

Schedule 8 of the bill clarifies that the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has jurisdiction to consider complaints that relate to superannuation. It will ensure that consumers who have superannuation related complaints against financial services organisations maintain access to external dispute resolution. Again, this is a corrective measure beneficial to consumers, which deals with the consequences of a recent Federal Court decision involving MetLife and AFCA which interpreted the law. We accept the court's decision, but it handed down an interpretation of the law which was not what everyone understood it to be. So we are clarifying that issue by doing what we believe to be the status quo ante. It is very pro-consumer. With those comments in mind, I once again thank members for their contributions to the debate and commend the bill to the House.

Question unresolved.

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