Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm happy to rise in the House today to talk about the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025. I move the amendment circulated in my name:

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 notes that:

(1) the bill seeks to extend two successful Coalition policies;

(2) the Government's policies have seen energy prices increase by $1,300 more than promised and it is now extending Coalition policy to ensure energy prices don't increase even further;

(3) the Government has only reluctantly decided to support business by extending the instant asset write-off under pressure from the Coalition ahead of the last election;

(4) this bill seeks to provide less frequent assessments of ASIC and APRA;

(5) thousands of Australians have lost over $1 billion in superannuation due to alleged misconduct by First Guardian and Shield;

(6) ASIC has been accused of major failures in responding to this crisis which the Government has been silent about;

(7) the Government must explain to the thousands of victims why it is seeking to reduce accountability and transparency for ASIC at this time; and

(8) this bill seeks to clean up a range of the Government's mistakes including the application of GST to disability services".

Comprising seven schedules and impacting at least eight portfolios, it's not often that this parliament sees such a large bill that simultaneously demonstrates the coalition's competence and Labor's laziness. But that's what we have in this omnibus bill before the House today. I take the opportunity to look at a few of the schedules. If you look at two in particular, they are very close to copy and paste. One is a complete copy and paste and an extension of a former coalition measure and the other one is almost a copy and paste. It builds on a coalition measure.

The first is an extension of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2019. This is all about the energy market, and we know why this government has chosen to extend a coalition measure—because, under the last term of the coalition government, we saw energy prices come down. They came down by about eight per cent for households, 10 per cent for businesses and 12 per cent for industry. We had a proven track record of getting energy prices down. That's what a coalition does. Then in came the Albanese Labor government. The reason I'm trying hard not to laugh is that they promised the Australian people a $275 reduction in household power bills—$275 down was their promise. In fact, power bills have gone up by $1,300.

Well, if you look at the coalition's record in its last term—on average, let's say we got prices down by 10 per cent. Over the Albanese government's first term, they got prices up for gas by 38 per cent and up for electricity by 39 per cent. It is no wonder, therefore, that within this omnibus bill you have a schedule which basically extends a coalition measure that ensured that any savings made by energy retailers would be passed through to consumers—a measure that ensured that energy generators would not be able to adversely bid into the system, as in play the system to the adverse impact of consumers, and that ensured that they would have to be signing up to financial contracts.

This was all set up by the coalition government to ensure it was putting downward pressure on electricity prices. It was one of the many schemes that helped the coalition deliver. It goes to coalition competence, but the Labor government has defied the coalition's practice, and they have seen prices go through the roof. Indeed, only recently, we saw the 2035 emissions reduction targets come out from this government, but they cannot tell the Australian people how much it's going to cost. They don't know how they're going to get there or how much it will cost. What we do know from the market operator and every other energy market expert in the country is that prices are going to continue to rise. This government has no answers—it has no solutions whatsoever—which is why, in this omnibus bill, as a demonstration of coalition competence and Labor laziness, they have decided, in schedule 6, to extend that legislation. That legislation was famously known in this chamber as the 'big stick legislation'. The Labor opposition at the time were very excited about the big stick legislation, I have to say. They were determined to tell the Australian people that the big stick legislation was bad.

I'll let you in on a bit of history here. The now climate change and energy minister—the very minister who wants to extend this measure—said of this measure, 'The Liberals' silly big-stick divestment policy will drive up electricity prices even further.' And now the minister of the day says, 'Actually the coalition had it right after all.' I remind you that this is the now Labor climate change and energy minister who was saying, about the very measure that today he wants this House to pass, 'this ridiculous policy'—the very one he has in front of the House now—'this Venezuelan-style intervention, this intervention in the economy which would chill investment'. This is what he said. The now health minister, another frontbencher, said of this very measure:

This is a stunt by a government that has no energy plan.

The now housing minister, another frontbencher, said:

It is a silly grab bag of things that don't amount to a cohesive policy …

And the now assistant minister for immigration said of the measure that they want to put through today it 'would have to be the worst, shallowest, most ill-conceived piece of legislation that I have seen in the parliament in my time as a member'. Yet here they are today. This goes to the fact that the coalition was competent, because everything the government is doing is seeing prices go up for energy. There's one measure in their kitbag that the coalition had introduced which is driving the pressure downwards, and that's the one they bring forward, trying to hide it amidst all these other measures within the omnibus.

If I can go to another measure, it's schedule 7. This one is the instant asset write-off. Again, it goes to the competence of the former coalition government. The Liberals and the Nationals are the only side of politics who actually care about small business and recognise the importance of cash flow and the importance of encouraging the bringing forward of investment, because that will enable businesses to grow. But they can't do that too easily, which is why the instant asset write-offs were created in the first place by the coalition. And now we have the Labor government stealing the policy—which we're very happy about, by the way. That's fine. The more the Labor government steals coalition policy, the better it is for the Australian people. Again, it goes to coalition competence versus Labor laziness. But we do say we like instant asset write-offs.

The only reason they actually were doing this for this term of government anyway is the fact that the coalition had shamed them into it. At the end of the last term of government, the coalition came out with a far stronger instant asset write-off policy to what's before the House today. This shamed the Albanese government, because they'd totally forgotten, as they always do, about small business. But it shamed them, on the eve of the election, to come forward with their own instant asset write-off. While it is nowhere near as good as what the coalition had put up, of course, it is a demonstration of coalition competence and the lazy Labor approach, and we support the instant asset write-offs, as you would expect from a coalition of Liberals and Nationals who understand the importance of small business and the importance of the economy.

But then there are other schedules. I won't run through them all, but, if you look at schedule 3, this is quite a disturbing one. It is suggesting that the government wants to weaken the accountability of both ASIC and APRA. This is most disturbing because, basically, again, due to the competence of the coalition government, you have an authority that assesses these two important regulators to see if they're doing the job as expected. You would think that, of all times, now would be the time where the Labor government would ensure that these bodies are accountable. That's because of the effect of the likes of First Guardian Master Fund and Shield Master Fund, where you have over $1 billion being lost by hardworking, everyday Australians from their savings.

This government has shown itself, again, to be completely lazy. They're not actively trying to ensure that they are fixing the problems here. They are not looking into ASIC to make sure that this does not happen again. Indeed, in the October 2022-23 budget, Labor promised to review the regulatory framework for managed investment schemes, like those of First Guardian and Shield. That review was due over a year ago. No findings have been released. Australians have lost their savings; no findings have been released from that review. Indeed, there was a Senate inquiry done, led by Senator Andrew Bragg. That report goes to the issues which are impacting the likes of Shield and First Guardian and leading to losses by everyday Australians. Do you think the government has responded to that? No. They're too lazy. They're just too lazy. Fifteen months have gone by. They're not responding to that. Why would they bother? Meanwhile, everyday Australians, hardworking Australians, are losing their life savings.

What's in this bill? What's the relevance here? Well, instead of actually scrutinising the likes of ASIC and APRA further and having assessments done every two years, what we see in this bill is the government saying, 'We'll only do it every five years.' Think about that. Australians have lost their savings. ASIC has a lot to answer for. This government has done nothing. It has been given reports and recommendations to fix it. They've done nothing. Then they put in this bill the idea, 'Actually, we don't need to look at ASIC every two years anymore; we're going to do it every five.' What sort of message does that send to those hardworking Australian families who have lost everything in some cases? What message does it send ASIC about whether or not this government wants them to fix problems? I think we know the answer to that rhetorical question.

There are other issues and schedules. I won't go through them now. The reason is that, while the coalition will not oppose this bill in the House, we are referring it to a Senate committee. That Senate committee is the committee for economics. We will reserve our final position until after that committee has submitted its report.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I haven't been in this place for too long. It's only my second term. But, in my short time here, I've learned two things pretty quickly. One is not to take history lessons from the coalition—the Liberals or the Nationals. We just heard a claim that the instant asset write-off was a policy created by the coalition, when it was, in fact, the Rudd-Gillard government that started the instant asset write-off and a Labor government that supported small-business cash flow. I'll talk to that as part of schedule 7.

The second thing I've learnt while being in this place for a short time is certainly not to take any advice on energy policy from those opposite. Just quickly then I tried to google how many failed energy policies they've had since 2013. I think it's over 20 failed energy policies. They took another one to the last election, and it was nuked by the Australian public. They want to bring that back as another energy policy. They'll probably change it a little bit again, and we'll start racking up triple digits, perhaps, on how many energy policies they've brought in here. So, when the member for Fairfax comes here and says how fantastic the coalition were at energy policy, you need to laugh, because history suggests the total opposite.

What we are doing, though, is modernising the energy market. We are transitioning to the cheapest form of new energy. We will make the decisions, like we are in this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025, to extend measures that were due to expire. I was going to talk about schedule 7 first, but, given the member for Fairfax's contribution, I might start on schedule 6. The energy market protections were due to expire. What this bill does is the right thing. It does a bit of maintenance on some of these expiring protections, and it will extend the consumer safeguard in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Act until 2031. An independent review found that these protections were effective in constraining market misconduct and protecting households and businesses. By extending them, we are ensuring that affordability and fairness remain at the centre of the energy transition. That is what good governments do. They look at policies, they review them and, if they're worthy of extension, they extend them. But taking advice from those opposite on energy policy is absolutely laughable.

As we've heard, there are seven schedules in this bill. Overall, what this bill does is seek to strengthen confidence in our markets, improve the ways that regulators operate and support long-term economic growth. It obviously, like most TLABs—again, this is not unique—covers a wide range of areas, from corporate disclosure and charity oversight to financial regulators, energy market protections and taxation. But, at its heart, this is a bill about investment, transparency and accountability—the foundations of stronger productivity and public trust, particularly in our economy.

Continuing on with schedule 7, this bill will implement the government's election commitment to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses until 30 June 2026—a really important measure for small businesses. I used to run a small business. I grew up in one—the family business—and spent a good 15 years running it, growing it and making sure it paid my bills and the family bills and also employed 10 to 15 workers during its peaks and troughs. Having a more simplified tax system, encouraging investment in assets of up to $20,000, was a really important measure introduced by the Rudd-Gillard government way back in the early 2000s—not created by the Liberals and Nationals, as claimed by the member for Fairfax, but a Labor policy that we implemented, that we supported when we were in opposition and that we continued in government.

It's really an important thing to extend, because it improves cash flows and reduces compliance costs for small businesses. I've got some incredible small businesses right across Bennelong—in Eastwood, West Ryde, Gladesville and Lane Cove. They are mum-and-dad small businesses, including a lot of people who have just come to Australia for the first time. Migrant communities have a high representation in small-business ownership. If you take a walk through Eastwood you can see them all, vibrant and making our high streets places to go, places to be. When you go out and talk to these small businesses in our electorates, they often talk about reducing red tape and making things easier for them. They understand that compliance is important, but how can we make that simpler?

The $20,000 instant asset write-off is absolutely one of those things that makes the everyday running of a small business easier. It means a cafe can upgrade its coffee machine or buy new hardware for its point-of-sale software. It means companies can invest in those higher-price items, up to $20,000, without having to carry the depreciation over the schedule. It reduces their costs with their accountant, which we all know can be high sometimes, and they can write it off for 12 months to buy new and, importantly, second-hand assets.

This measure was first introduced by Labor, because we know that cashflow measures like this really support small businesses. It means they'll be able to immediately deduct eligible assets costing less than $20,000 rather than, as I said, tracking those assets over time. Importantly, up to 4.1 million small businesses across the country can access this instant asset write-off.

The member for Fairfax just said that they're going to reserve their right. The last time an instant asset write-off TLAB came to parliament, the coalition blocked and delayed it for at least 12 months, creating a whole heap of uncertainty for investment from the small-business sector. Those over on the other side claim to be all about small business, understanding the economics of running a small business, fighting for small businesses. Yet they sowed doubt in the small-business community about whether or not they were going to support an extension of last financial year's instant asset write-off, only passing it at the eleventh hour. Let's hope the processes go through as outlined by the member for Fairfax. Let's hope that they can get through to the Senate, that they can have a look at this bill, which they're entitled to do, obviously, and send it off to a committee and that they don't sit on it and team up with others to delay this TLAB for an unnecessary amount of time. All that will do is slow down investment from small businesses and create doubt in their minds. There are 1.281 million small businesses in New South Wales that can benefit from this measure and will benefit from this measure sooner, with confidence, the quicker this TLAB gets through the House and through the Senate.

This is one measure of how this re-elected Labor government is really ensuring that we are supporting small businesses, and it's growing, I think. I know many, many members of the class of 2025 mentioned small businesses in their first speeches. They either have come from a small-business background, have worked in them or have family that have worked in them. This is the modern Labor Party—one that has roots in our industrial base but also has real connection to small and medium-sized businesses right across the country. We understand what small businesses go through, and we're here in this place representing them as much as we are workers across our economy.

In our last parliamentary term, that manifested itself as more than $2 billion in targeted supports. I'll just focus on the targeted ones for now; obviously, there are the economy-wide reforms that we put through as well. We've got a $900 million National Productivity Fund working with the states and territories to unlock productivity and cut red tape, particularly for small businesses. We've invested $33.4 million to improve payment times for small businesses, including $25.3 million in the 2024-25 budget to support the overhauled Payment Times Reporting Scheme and to enhance the regulator's ability to deliver payment outcomes for small businesses—another cash flow measure, just like the instant asset write-off. Being paid on time saves small businesses headaches in chasing up their delinquent debtors, but it also means that they can get money in their bank accounts to reinvest.

We provided over $60 million to help small businesses uplift their digital and cybersecurity capabilities, a huge and growing cost and concern for small businesses, particularly those that don't have the technical know-how of how to roll out a firewall in their local IT systems or how to deal with training of their staff—'Don't click on this,' and, 'Don't open that email.' Having the Cyber Wardens program and the Digital Solutions program is a way in which we understand that problem, and we're trying to help small businesses overcome these high-risk situations.

Of course, there are our tax cuts, famously opposed by the Liberals and Nationals. Having tax cuts for every taxpayer benefits 1.5 million sole traders. All 1.5 million of those sole traders—including tradies, hairdressers, coffee shops and other small businesses—across the country benefit when we change the income tax rates. We know that the Liberals and Nationals went to the last election with the policy of not only opposing our tax cuts but actually repealing them and trying to increase taxes. Those over there are not Menzies's party, and perhaps that's the reason why someone like me was re-elected in a seat like Bennelong.

We're here supporting small businesses and workers, including sole traders. We have, of course, delivered additional energy bill relief, with another $150 in rebates until the end of the year. This builds on specific and targeted small-business electricity rebates we rolled out in the last term. As for our Cheaper Home Batteries Program, you heard the responsible minister say that over 78,000 home batteries have been installed through that. We've made sure that small businesses are eligible to accept that. They will be eligible for up to 50 kilowatt hours of battery storage capacity. I would love to see some stats on how many small businesses are taking up that battery subsidy rebate, because we acknowledge that small businesses also want to decarbonise and reduce emissions and also want to access battery technology to help reduce their bills. We've supported the hospitality sector by pausing indexation on the draught beer excise, and we've extended unfair trading practices protections to small business by strengthening the enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct.

Schedule 7 of this bill and our commitment to deliver an extended instant asset write-off build on what we've done to support small businesses in our term-and-a-bit in government. I would hope that the coalition cooperate in passing this bill through the House and through the Senate as soon as possible so that, in particular, schedule 7 gives small business the confidence to invest up to that $20,000 cap, a really important measure.

I'll talk a little bit about some of the other schedules in my remaining time. Schedule 1 is all about corporate transparency. These provisions will align us with international best practice to stop hidden build-ups of influence in listed companies. It'll give ASIC sharper enforcement powers to ensure compliance. Essentially, schedule 1 means that the public will have better access to ownership registers of corporations, shining a light on who really controls these companies—again, another measure building on what we did last term to increase world-leading transparency measures on corporations. We've got public country-by-country reporting, disclosures of subsidiaries' tax residency and greater accountability for firms bidding for government contracts. Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to extend that principle.

Schedule 2, on charities, is really important as well. Public trust in charities is too important to be undermined by secrecy. Currently, the ACNC, the national regulator, cannot confirm whether or not a charity is under investigation, even in cases of gross and serious misconduct. This bill changes that, allowing disclosures where needed to prevent harm and assure the public that issues are being addressed. This will give the public confidence in the charities sector. It will also give donors confidence that their contributions are well placed and support our goal of doubling philanthropic giving by 2030. Again, it's another cog in the wheel of broader reforms in transparency.

There's much more to this bill, but the aspects that I've highlighted are incredibly important, and I commend them to the House.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

As soon as we talk about ASIC, I will take the first opportunity I have to come in on behalf of the people of the Shield fund and First Guardian. These are superannuants who lost up to, I think, $1.2 billion. The money was basically stolen. Now, I know Macquarie Bank has now come in to bat for one of them as one of the proponents who put these forward, but this was a classic example of red flags being thrown up that were never picked up, of pressure salespeople coming in.

There are people who woke up and had lost over a million dollars worth of their savings. We had people who were ready to retire and now basically have to go back to work. For how long? For as long as they can possibly work. This is a sign of the incompetence of this system to pick these things up. First Guardian and Shield were approved by four super fund trustees but rejected by others. There should be a minimum standard for a superannuation fund and limits on exposure to one. These mass-marketing campaigns—ASIC should have been looking at them and finding out what was happening.

I want to give a big shout-out to Melinda Kee and the work that she's been doing on behalf of these people. I told these people that I would go in to bat for them. I know that Minister Mulino has now seen them, but they sent over 4,000 emails to him, and he never replied. Now he has, but it's taken a while. What these people want is—they're saying, 'If you're the policeman, if you're looking after this, if you have the oversight of this, how did this happen to us?'

What should be happening now is these people should be paid, and you go out and recover the money as best you can. But what we see here is sort of a silence. Macquarie Bank have come in, but it's silence from the government on the rest. It's funny how the government can find all these billions and billions of dollars for domestic billionaires and international companies for intermittent power and then, when their own workers are put out and have basically had their retirements smashed, it all becomes too quiet. I have been waiting. Maybe the minister might want to give a statement or come to the dispatch box and answer a question. I thought that that would have to happen. You would imagine that a lot of these people voted for Labor. When you blow between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion, you would expect that it might strike a feature—as we used say in accounting terms—in your reporting back to the parliament, but no such luck.

We have lost $1.2 billion from these two funds. How do we know it's not going to happen again? Why don't we have the minister come out? I hear he's an honours graduate. I think he went to Harvard. He's obviously a capable person. He should be given a question by the Prime Minister. Come up and give us a little yarn about how you are going with this. I know that Melinda Kee and all the other people in Save Our Super—that's the support group—really want to hear what's going on because they haven't heard much from this chamber. In fact, they've heard nothing. They've heard absolutely nothing.

As I said, we also have other issues. I'll give you one. Even though they have lost their money, the people aren't eligible for the age pension because Centrelink sees their super balances as still existing. Can you imagine that? You've got no money; your money has been stolen. They went out to find some of these people, and they found safes full of jewellery and cash and property disappearing overseas. People say, 'You can go on the age pension.' No, they can't, because they still deem that they have super balances. It is incredible that this has been allowed to happen.

We obviously also have health impacts. People woke up, and they thought that something was not quite right. They were trying to get their super out, and, all of sudden, it was frozen. Then they found it was not there. That can affect people emotionally—finding out you're bust. It can hurt people to find out: 'Oh, hang on; I'm broke. I've got no money.' I'm thinking of the case of one bloke who had over a million dollars in super. He blew it. Another lady had $600,000. She'd been working diligently and woke up with no money. It was just gone!

ASIC has oversight of this, and they have been bereft of competency, capability and an explanation as to what has happened. We should be holding the Assistant Treasurer to account. There should be an explanation to this House about exactly how this happened and some guarantee or warrant that it's not already happening again because I haven't heard one. Maybe I've been missing in these exorbitant and exciting question times, but I haven't heard anybody talk about this. I think it's about time they do. I say to Melinda and the others, 'Yes, come to Sydney.' After I've kicked up a big stink about intermittent power, I'll start kicking up a big stink about them as well and try to help them out because they need help.

We want to see what happens in the complex AFCA complaints process. We want to make sure that this gets to some form of resolution. We want to make sure that even the tax and superannuation complication issues that have been brought up by this are resolved. I'm sure the assistant minister has the academic acumen to deal with this, but I haven't seen the delivery of dealing with this. Once more, I acknowledge that he has now had a meeting with Melinda Kee, and I appreciate that. His apparent approach was very empathetic, as I read in Melinda's notes, but it can't stop there. Empathy goes so far but doesn't go as far as restoring your superannuation balance, and that's what we need.

Macquarie Bank has done the right thing. They've said, 'Okay, we had our fingers in this, and we are going to have to pay these people out.' Good! What about the rest? They had their fingers in it too. They got their commissions and their trailing fees. They made money out of it and put it in their pocket. They didn't do it for free. If they've made their money out of it, if they've received their commissions, then I think they're responsible for exactly what happened to their clients' money. This is going to be—let's see, maybe this week. One day has gone, and there are two days to go. Let's see if it gets through the tactics committee of the Labor Party to do a dorothy dixer. I want to put it on Facebook and show Melinda and show the others that you are actually as good as your word.

Debate interrupted.