Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the progress of the Australian Taxation Office in relation to the recovery of debt? What advice does he have for businesses and individuals in relation to the payment of their bills?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I commend the Australian Taxation Office for the extraordinary work that they are doing in ensuring that the revenue base is secure and that we have provisions in place. As we know on this side of the House, we have been increasing the resources of the Australian Taxation Office to ensure that they can pursue these very measures and the increased support we have given them to ensure that we recover debts. It is the same support we have given to the Department of Human Services and other agencies to ensure that we recover the debts of those who might have a welfare debt or something like that, and the same is true for those in the corporate sector. As the Prime Minister has said, it is absolutely critical that we have a tax base that is secure. We would all like the tax to be lower, but all taxes must be paid. My advice, obviously, to those people is to work with the Australian Taxation Office to ensure that they are able to meet their debts.

But the one thing I would not suggest they do is the practice that we have seen from a member of the opposition in the Senate, Senator Dastyari, whose approach to paying debts—we know those opposite seem to think this is about foreign donations; it is not about foreign donations at all; it is about paying a debt. What we know is that Senator Dastyari—Shanghai Sam—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will refer to senators by their correct titles.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will. Senator Dastyari, having spent his allotment of his travel expenses, decided he did not want to have to pay the extra, so he got on the blower and rang a donor and said, 'I'd like you to cover the rest.' What is extraordinary about this is: you have got to have a pretty high level of expectation to get on the phone to someone to ask them to cover off the debt. I do not know if this was the first person he called. Maybe he was up to call 2 or 3, but I suspect it was the first call he made, because he knew and he had expectation that that donor would pick up his personal debt.

The Leader of the Opposition, when confronted by this—what he did not do was seek to get some clarity about the facts of the case. Did he ask the National Secretary of the ALP to give him some advice and sit down with Senator Dastyari and get a clear statement of the facts? No. He said: 'It'll be all right, Sam. It'll be all right. We'll just bludgeon this one out, and they'll all back off.' It came to the point where Senator Dastyari actually decided to resign. As the minister has said, who would have thought that Senator Dastyari had higher standards than the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to these sorts of issues? There was no new information between what we learnt about the facts of Senator Dastyari and the time of his resignation. And I have not heard one thing from the Leader of the Opposition to explain why he defended him one day and then was happy to accept his resignation the next. What went on on that side of the House shows the low standards of this Leader of the Opposition and why he cannot be trusted to impose those standards as a Prime Minister.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton is now warned.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Go and ask Mal Brough!

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen will cease interjecting. I just warned the member for Moreton, in case he did not hear as the member for McEwen was interjecting.