Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Of course I welcome the pathway to be able to make sure that the financial instruments that Australians use on a day-to-day basis operate with the compliance and framework of law. So in seeking, in the loose terms of the spirit of this law, to support it, I welcome the fact that the government is finally taking steps to bring about a legal framework to include cryptocurrencies and the sorts of digital assets that we need to be part of not just a modern economy but the global economy. It has taken the government an incredibly long period of time to get here, and I know their agenda has been incredibly detailed and complicated in so many different areas, of which not a single one I can name. But that's probably a reflection of the busy work and fights that go on between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

We nonetheless welcome the pathway that they're providing for a framework for cryptocurrencies. Fair enough too. When I look at cryptocurrencies—I've always been a bit of a sceptic not from a sense of opposition but from a sense of, 'What's the underlying value?' I'm in the Warren Buffett camp at the end of the day, if it's productive capacity in use. But one thing I have always given credit to cryptocurrencies for is that I think that they're a hedge against inflation and expansive monetary policy from central banks—entities that I am not very trusting of because they have successively and consistently got decisions wrong, which has led to what we now have to acknowledge is the Chalmers rate-rise cycle. We had, of course, one interest rate rise yesterday off the back of shocking inflation data. But we know this is not going to be the end. So long as you have expansive fiscal policy—borrowing from the future for debt spending for today to cover up on the economic mismanagement of this government—Australians will be at risk of higher inflation and higher interest rates.

We're a stand-out, but for all the wrong reasons, on a global scale around interest rates. It's directly connected to decisions by state and federal governments who simply want to cover up for their economic mismanagement by borrowing more money so that they don't have to acknowledge that they're strangling the private sector of the economy.

So the one thing I will say at the moment is that I'm afraid crypto probably is—and this is general advice, not financial advice—good value in hedging against the economic tyranny of the Albanese government, because the Chalmers rate-rise cycle has only just begun and there will be much more of it yet to come. I say that with sadness, because there's nothing Australians can afford less right now, after they've paid their Christmas credit-card-debt bill and are paying for school fees, uniforms and all the other costs that come with the new school year. The worst thing they could have had yesterday was an interest rate rise, and unfortunately, under the Chalmers rate-rise cycle, you should fully accept that that's not going to be the end of the matter.

But that's not what this bill, the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, addresses. What it does do, though, is to give a legal framework, a pathway, for Australians—young, old and everything in between—to invest, as they see fit, complying with law. We welcome that, because there are a lot of issues that a lot of people who invested in crypto earlier, before this legislative framework, had. There were big grey areas around the property rights underlying their investments, the legality of them, the transferability of them and their capacity to seek redress, and there are lots of the more complicated things that flow on, for instance, from capital gains tax.

We, on this side of the chamber, have always understood how important it is to get this framework right. That's why Senator Bragg did an outstanding job leading a parliamentary inquiry to look at how we take the grey into the light. The government has picked up significant parts of Senator Bragg's efforts and passed them off as their own homework. We still, ultimately, welcome the effort—even if there isn't the acknowledgement and we're seeing the government trying to pretend that they have somehow invented this work.

But we can understand why the Labor Party took so long to introduce this legislation, because, at every point, we know, the cartel relationships that operate between the Labor Party, the trade unions and the industry super funds are a giant money-laundering operation, and of course one of the problems with crypto is that it sits outside of the frames of legality. So I imagine that a large part of the reason why it's taken so long is that they've been desperately trying to figure out how they can extract, from crypto, cartel kickbacks to the CFMEU, to go into the slush funds of the Labor Party and the trade union movement and perhaps other funds as well. It continues to be a criminal activity, but, unfortunately, when we know that Australian taxpayers' money has flown into organised crime and bikie gangs, courtesy of state and federal Labor governments, there is a moral evil here that must be expunged. And, until we remove this government, crypto, traditional assets and your tax dollars will not be safe. No Australians' assets will be safe until we remove this government.

We're supportive of the principle of this bill and what it's seeking to achieve. But the government, in their way, can't help but go off and refer things to different agencies like ASIC. As to ASIC and having oversight of ASIC, let's be polite and say that, at times, calamity follows and there's their complete incapacity or unwillingness to regulate certain sections of the market—let alone the absence of the knowledge, capacity or skill.

We have recommended that this bill go off to a committee because we believe that it is deficient, we're not convinced ASIC can do the job that's been charged to them and there's a serious need for further work to be done. But we'll see on that.

There's the spirit of the bill, but the practical application of it is something we're going to have to not just revisit through the committee process but continue to revisit into the future, because the cost of getting this wrong is serious. We know full well that, if we have crypto in a legal framework that encourages investment, it could be part of capital flows that can invest in the future of this country, and we can increase the economic opportunity that every Australian enjoys. The failure is what is happening right now, where people are investing offshore and Australians are disconnected from the opportunities of crypto.

Now, I understand why a lot of Australians are—and only the other day I had a constituent say that they are—moving their capital offshore, because of the approach of this Labor government, and moving it to foreign jurisdictions, in a legal way. And this is now a very common story. We're seeing the same thing in the UK, where Labor governments think they can somehow tax people into prosperity, where they can tax people to the point they'll look for foreign jurisdictions, where they're taxed out of their patriotism. That is exactly what is happening under this government—that we're all becoming poorer as a nation. And, of course, crypto provides a very fast pathway to do that, and that is what we're now staring down—the risk of capital outflows from this country because Labor can't manage the budget.

They're exposing Australians to inflation. That means higher interest rates. That means that, as part of the Chalmers' rate-rise cycle, Australians will get poorer and will be taxed out of their patriotism. This is a time when we need laws that design and protect people's assets and Australians are encouraged to keep their money onshore, investing in the future of this nation—not part of the cartel kickback corruption cycle that has so fanned under this government and state Labor governments and is core to the corrupt system that sits at the heart of the modern Labor Party.

See this speech in context