Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Previously, I have spoken about the problem of large and growing global inequality and the fact that the world's richest 85 people own as much wealth as the bottom 3½ billion people in the world. The world's richest one percent own as much of the world's wealth as the bottom 50 per cent; that is, the top one percent own 50 percent of the world's wealth.

I was pleased to see Micah Challenge visiting members of parliament this week, including myself, to talk about the problem of extreme poverty. They point out that more than a billion people live in extreme poverty and that that is an affront to human dignity, stunting lives and bodies by destroying hope and opportunity. They have campaigned in support of the Millennium Development Goals since 2005. They point out that this year Australia has a unique opportunity as chair of the G20 to tackle the scourge of tax dodging, which robs developing countries on a massive scale of vital revenue for poverty reduction and sustainable human development.

Christian Aid has pointed out that since 2008 developing countries have lost more than US$160 billion through multinational corporate tax dodging and that that figure is actually bigger than the amount that these countries receive in aid which amounted to US$120 billion in 2009.

They propose an 'ABC' of tackling tax evasion internationally. Firstly, automatic exchange of information—of course, some of that is going on and is to be commended. We need to have a global standard in that area that all developing countries can aspire to and be supported in. Secondly, the 'B', is beneficial ownership disclosure through a public register that lists the true owners and beneficiaries of companies, trusts and foundations. Unfortunately, anonymous companies and secret trusts can be covers for crime, corruption and tax dodging. Thirdly is country-by-country reporting for multinational corporations. Currently the international reporting standards only require multinational companies to produce reports at a global level, making it impossible to know how much is earned or invested and how much tax was paid in each country in which they operate. There have been initiatives by the US and the European Union in this regard. Micah Challenge believes that the government should require all multinational corporations registered in Australia to provide a worldwide combined report, including country-by-country breakdown of their assets and their tax paid, and that we should have the G20 adopt this country-by-country reporting as standard.