So what does that mean? This opens up the way for consumer groups, such as CHOICE, and our own food growers or farmers to have better, faster mechanisms to access the ACCC's enforcement functions in case of significant or systemic market issues. If accepted by the minister, the ACCC must determine a designated complaint within 90 days and act on it as soon as possible or within six months. This seems to be a start to providing the ACCC with some teeth—I would say a badly needed set of molars—but this does not go far enough.
One concern is that no additional funding has been provided to the ACCC to implement this additional vital function, and that, I believe, is utterly crucial. We can't empower bodies such as the ACCC and then not put the funding in behind them that is required to ensure what we in the parliament and the consumers want: a robust ACCC that has the financial capacity to actually deal with complaints and deal with them thoroughly. Further, the minister can refuse to designate a complaint or decide to limit the number of designated complainants in a year without having to give reasons for that decision. I believe reasons should be given for that decision, and that is a transparency issue that just makes good sense.
Moreover, it's not just grocery retailers and the price that consumers are paying that are common knowledge and hot talking points in this place at the moment. But, aside from the fact that many people are spending $60 or $80 on just two bags of shopping, it's the fact that many famers are not getting a fair deal at the farm gate. I have a rural electorate. I have many farmers who are very reliant on having a relationship with one of the two major supermarket chains, and it is an incredibly imbalanced relationship. Once at the farm gate, the supermarket chains push prices paid to producers down, and we know that farmers are on the brink.
We also know that, when these supermarket giants decide that they're going to have specials, they don't wear the margin in between; they push that back to the producer as well. Consumers are also not benefiting from this, because consumers are paying massively higher margins on produce. Why are they doing that? Well, because we just don't have competition in this country. We are a country of duopolies, and I think there is no worse duopoly than that of the supermarkets.
This is not news. I've been talking about this in this place for years. Going back to 3 December, I mentioned a fantastic book called Supermarket Monsters, and I think every member in this place should read that book. It's by an author called Malcolm Knox. In fact, I think it's even available in the library, so we could all take turns and share it from the library. It goes into a really deep study on the practices of our major supermarkets and how they affect our growers and how they affect us as consumers—it goes right the way across. We're not just talking about horticulture, and we're not just talking about dairy. It even goes into viticulture. I have six wine regions in my electorate, and I think most consumers would be really surprised to know how many labels are actually owned by the supermarket chains.
We need to refresh the ACCC. We need to make sure that the ACCC has funding behind it, but I would also like to see it have divestiture powers to break up uncompetitive market-power-abusing monopolies and duopolies. I think that we could do this through the Federal Court. The Federal Court should be given the power to be able to break up bad-behaving duopolies.
In November 2022, I discussed the need for us to support producers, given the pronounced influential power of the supermarkets. This is particularly challenging for the horticultural industry because they can only sell products that are of a very specific size, and so much of their product can be turned away. They can sell to a supermarket and then be told that their product didn't meet a certain criteria and be downgraded. This is crushing and, when you're working on such tiny margins, it can mean many farmers going to the wall. The question we need to ask here is: do we want to have Australian-made produce? If we look at what brands are on our supermarket shelves now and what were on our supermarket shelves decades ago, it's a very limited number of brands. If you're a producer and one of the major two decide that they're no longer going to stock your product, or in the case—which might seem like a good contract to begin with—where one of the major two decides they want to have your product exclusively, you are actually then incredibly beholden to them. You've really put all of your eggs in one basket, as a producer.
As well as talking about this in relation to ACCC monitoring back in June 2023, just yesterday I talked about the overarching need to break up anticompetitive concentrations in our Australian supermarkets. I know that some have said, 'That's the kind of thing that happens in Russia.' Actually, it happens in America too. America has far greater protection laws for consumers and for producers. They have antitrust laws, and we need to have them here. This bill from the government is good. It's small; it's a start. I do support this legislation, but it really does need to have some financial backing behind it. If there's no extra money behind it, I think that it's really quite worthless, because we're asking the ACCC to do more with less when we know there are some serious issues.
As I said yesterday, it's not socialism to look at this. We actually need to look at the Sherman Antitrust Act in the United States. The US looked at this as an issue in 1890 and said that they needed to have free competition to ensure much less chance of monopolies and duopolies forming. Their Clayton Act of 1914 prohibits price discrimination. This is an act about selling the same product to different buyers and charging different prices based on who is purchasing the goods. The law prohibits such practices if they substantially lessen competition, as the practice may incidentally create a monopoly. These antitrust laws have been going in the United States for more than a century. We need to empower the Federal Court here and we need to make sure that we give the ACCC the money to investigate properly, and not just put legislation through this place with no money behind it.
There is an inherent power imbalance, and that power imbalance is between consumers and the duopoly supermarkets, and also between the duopoly supermarkets and the growers. As I said, this goes across everything that we can buy in the supermarket.
So, in closing, I do commend this bill, but I think the government could go much further. I would like to see the government look at what the rest of the word does. As I said, we can learn a lot about this from what many people consider to be the greatest nation on earth, with respect to commerce, the United States. We, as consumers, need to rise up, because the duopolies are hurting all of us. And this isn't just supermarkets; it's airlines and it's right the way across—there's the fact that we only have four big banks in this nation. We need to do better in this place to ensure that we're protecting the needs of consumers over these duopolies.
]]>Around my electorate I've spoken to many primary producers, and the story is always the same: they cannot continue to operate with the high input costs—energy, wages, transport—while receiving bargain basement gate prices. We are sleepwalking into a disaster. Mum-and-dad farmers are exiting the market, particularly in dairy. Mum-and-dad farmers will simply be lost for good. It's heartbreaking to hear comments from them, such as, 'I can't afford to deal with the duopoly and I can't afford not to, either,' and, 'It now costs me more to produce than what I receive, but there's no pricepoint increase.' They are trapped. They have no bargaining power and, without it, no alternative. As I said, they're price takers, not makers.
It's not just the primary producers that are affected by the duopolies. We all are. We're all paying dearly for it. The lack of competition in the retail sector removes the need for innovation, price competitiveness, service and every other aspect associated with true competition. Many of us are just delighted to actually find a checkout server, rather than having to do it ourselves—receiving no 'staff discount' for doing so.
I welcome the government's direction to the ACCC to conduct an inquiry into the Australian supermarket sector, including the price practices of the supermarkets and the relationship between wholesale, including farmgate, and retail prices. However, I'm concerned: we've been down this path before, in 2008, and nothing happened. In part nothing happened because the ACCC found that there was 'little evidence to substantiate allegations of buyer power being exercised in an anticompetitive and unconscionable manner'. But the report did go on to say:
… however, there were some complaints of buyer power being exercised where the complainant appeared to be genuinely reluctant to provide information to the ACCC out of concern about retribution if details were provided to the ACCC and investigated.
This is the crux of the problem. Suppliers are almost solely reliant on selling to one of the two retailers, and they're reluctant to question, challenge or criticise, for fear of retribution or having their line deleted from the shelves. I hope the current inquiry gives sufficient protection and peace of mind to primary producers.
It's time that we joined other countries, like the United States, that have had antitrust laws for a long time. We need to introduce them here to protect consumers and businesses. Antitrust laws are not associated with communist countries, as some in this House have suggested. They are laws that regulate the conduct of business to promote competition and prevent unjustified monopolies and duopolies. The United States is the mecca of capitalism, but it manages improper business conduct through laws such as the Clayton and Sherman acts, which outlaw restraint of trade and attempted monopolisation. If the US can do it, we can do it too. For too long Australia has been the playground of monopolistic and duopolistic enterprises. This has stifled competition, harmed productivity, forced our primary producers to the edge of extinction and contributed to the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory.
Past actions have not worked. Repeating them is not going to work either. We therefore need to do something differently. We must consider antitrust laws and we must consider them now, because, if we want to still to be drinking milk that's made in Australia and eating food that's made in Australia, we have to do more to support our farmers, and this is the way to do it.
]]>This is an eminently sensible bill that's following on from Canada and New Zealand, and I thank the member for Calare for his great work in this area. We know that we are in a housing crisis. We also know that we need to do everything possible in this place to look at taking the heat out of the market, because in one generation we have taken away the dream of home ownership. I would argue that part of that is the fact that we have allowed foreign ownership. We know that post-COVID, anecdotally, this has increased dramatically. And, as the member for Calare rightly says, in just one year, that's 4,000 homes that could have gone to Australian buyers. It is not easy to build 4,000 homes. It takes time. We have a huge housing shortage. It is going to take decades for us to boost the supply.
An issue that's related to this is the rapid increase in population that we have allowed, with respect to migration. We're 20 years ahead of where we should be with our population. That's 20 years of housing supply that we haven't done; that's 20 years of infrastructure, social infrastructure, roads that we have not done. This is an incredibly sensible thing to do.
As a member for Calare said, Canada has done this. Canada has extended their two-year pause. Canada, another liberal democracy that we have a lot of public policy symmetry with. New Zealand is the same. There are many nations in the world where, if you are a foreigner, you cannot buy real estate. We're not saying that; we're saying that there needs to be a pause. We need to boost our own supply. We need to do this sustainably and we need to make sure that we don't have people living in sheds.
I receive so many emails every week from people who are absolutely desperate, who are on every possible app, who have gone to every real estate agent in their area. They're desperate for a home to rent or to purchase. They turn to me and say: 'Rebekha, what can we do? Do you know anyone? Do you know anywhere we can live?' That's ridiculous. Yet at the same time, in the year to July 2023, we had net migration of over half a million people. That's bigger than the population of Tasmania or, indeed, Canberra. We can't be doing that year on year and then saying: 'Oh, gee. I wonder why we have a housing crisis. I wonder how we could fix this.'
So I think that this is a very sensible bill. It is not xenophobic. It's not racist. It's just saying, 'Let's pause this, have a think about it, and see if we can take some of the heat out of the market and get back to the Australian dream.' Most Australians over generations have managed to buy their first home in their 20s or early 30s. We've taken that away in one generation.
]]>(1) Schedule 1, item 4, page 4 (before line 15), before the paragraph beginning "This Part also deals with" in section 20A, insert:
This Part requires reporting entities to assist the Commissioner to perform the Commissioner's functions.
(2) Schedule 1, item 4, page 4 (line 26) to page 5 (line 2), omit paragraph 20C(1)(b), substitute:
(b) to support Australian entities, and entities carrying on business in Australia, to:
(i) undertake due diligence processes to address risks of modern slavery practices in their operations and supply chains, and in the operations and supply chains of entities they own or control; and
(ii) develop innovative practices towards ending modern slavery;
(3) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (lines 5 to 7), omit paragraph 20C(1)(d), substitute:
(d) to support victims of modern slavery by:
(i) helping to identify victims; and
(ii) providing information to victims about government and non-government resources, programs and services; and
(iii) helping victims make complaints; and
(iv) providing background support to enable coordinated referrals of victim complaints to relevant organisations;
(4) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (line 15), after "to", insert "conduct general inquiries relating to modern slavery and to".
(5) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (line 25), omit "at the request of the Minister,".
(6) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (lines 31 to 33), omit subsection 20C(2), substitute:
(2) To avoid doubt, the Commissioner may not:
(a) interfere with criminal investigations; or
(b) investigate, or resolve complaints concerning, individual instances or suspected instances of modern slavery.
(7) Schedule 1, item 4, page 10 (after line 14), after Division 4, insert:
Division 4A — Reporting entities must assist the Commissioner
20VA Reporting entities must assist the Commissioner
A reporting entity must cooperate with and assist the Commissioner in the performance of the Commissioner's functions.
20VB Explanations for failure to assist the Commissioner
Request for explanation or remedial action
(1) If the Minister is reasonably satisfied that an entity has failed to comply with section 20VA, the Minister may give a written request to the entity to do either or both of the following:
(a) provide an explanation for the failure to comply within a specified period of 28 days or longer after the request is given;
(b) undertake specified remedial action in accordance with the request within a specified period of 28 days or longer after the request is given.
(2) The Minister may extend, or further extend, a period specified in a request under subsection (1) by written notice given to the entity. The extension may be given before or after the end of the specified period (or that period as previously extended).
(3) A request under subsection (1) must include a statement of the effect of subsections (2), (4) and (5).
Publication of information about failure to comply with request
(4) If the Minister is reasonably satisfied that an entity has failed to comply with a request under subsection (1), the Minister may publish the following information in any way the Minister considers appropriate:
(a) the identity of the entity;
(b) the date the request was given, and details of any extension given under subsection (2);
(c) details of the explanation or remedial action requested, and the period or periods specified in the request;
(d) the reasons why the Minister is satisfied that the entity has failed to comply with the request.
Review of decisions
(5) Applications may be made to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for review of the Minister's decision under subsection (4) to publish information about an entity's failure to comply with a request under subsection (1).
(8) Schedule 1, item 4, page 11 (line 23), at the end of paragraph 20X(6)(b), add:
; and (c) other government agencies, civil society groups (including victim survivors) and businesses.
(9) Schedule 1, item 4, page 12 (after line 35), at the end of Division 5, add:
20Z Review of the Commissioner's budget
(1) The Minister must cause an independent review to be conducted of the Commissioner's budget.
(2) The review must start as soon as practicable after the end of the 3-year period after the commencement of this section.
(3) The persons who conduct the review must give the Minister a written report of the review within 3 months of the commencement of the review.
(4) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the report is given to the Minister.
The Modern Slavery Amendment (Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner) Bill 2023 is a vital step in combating modern slavery. It establishes a new commissioner to support victim-survivors of modern slavery practices and to fight slavery in Australia and overseas. However, I share the views of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Often I don't share the views of the ACTU, but this time I do! Human rights experts and civil society groups said the bill must be improved upon and the commissioner's role and independence bolstered considerably. Such an important role must be empowered and resourced to work most effectively from its inception. That is why I am moving these amendments: to require Australian entities and entities carrying on business in Australia to assist the commissioner in addressing modern slavery; to require entities to undertake due diligence to address risks of modern slavery practices in their operations and supply chain, rather than just reporting risks; to increase the commissioner's focus on helping to identify and provide support for victims-survivors, including helping them with complaints and referrals; to enable the commissioner to provide advice to the minister on modern slavery matters on their own instigation rather than only at the minister's request—and I think this is particularly critical; to clarify that the commissioner can conduct general inquiries but cannot interfere with enforcement agencies' investigations; to require the commissioner to consult more broadly with victims-survivors, civil society, business, government agencies and strategic planning; and, finally, to set a three-year time frame for a statutory review of the commissioner's budget to make sure they are appropriately resourced.
While slavery still flourishes in the shadows both in private industry and under some government and military regimes, we need to equip the new Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner to take the fight to modern slavery. This applies whether that slavery takes place on our shores or in the supply chains of goods that end up here.
I would like to thank Be Slavery Free for their work with civil society and other groups to achieve a better bill. In the words of Be Slavery Free, 'Modern slavery is a horrendous and growing crime in Australia and globally.'
An independent well resourced antislavery commissioner is essential to strengthen Australia's response and supporting government departments, businesses and civil society groups including victims-survivors. Once appointed this person will become a magnet for advice, support, education and awareness raising related to modern slavery. The position must have the scope, independence and resources to do so.
I acknowledge former senator Rex Patrick who, in the previous parliament, brought legislation to the parliament to ban the importation of products into Australia which used the forced labour of the Uyghur people, which formed the genesis of my own 2021 private member's bill. I call on the government and on every member of parliament to consider these important amendments to make the Anti-Slavery Commissioner as effective as they possibly can be from the inception. I commend these amendments to the House.
Question negatived.
Bill agreed to.
Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.
]]>Of an estimated 50 million people subjected to modern slavery worldwide, 28 million are in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriage. It's estimated that more than 10 million of those in forced labour are children, robbed of their opportunity to have a childhood or to be with their families. They are robbed of their health, their safety and their access to education. There is a high cost of forced child labour. Their lives depend on our choices and Australia moving to be modern slavery free.
In the last parliament, I introduced my Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced by Forced Labour) Bill 2021 in the hope that Australia would not be the end point of services and products made by forced labour. That bill built upon former Independent senator Rex Patrick's bill, the Custom Amendments (Banning Goods Produced by Uyghur Forced Labour) Bill 2020, which aimed to address the well-documented human rights abuses of hundreds of thousands of Uighur people being used in forced labour. Senator Patrick's bill was referred to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, which endorsed its objectives but recommended the introduction of a global ban on importing to Australia goods that are produced by forced labour—all provided for in my bill. Despite this recommendation, the government of the day did not support our bills and neither former senator Patrick's nor my bill passed into law.
The bill before us forms part of the government's response to the 2023 statutory review of the first three years of operation of Australia's Modern Slavery Act 2018, led by Professor John McMillan. In line with the review's recommendations, a new Anti-Slavery Commissioner will fight slavery in Australia and overseas by fostering compliance with the Modern Slavery Act. The commissioner will seek to improve transparency in supply chains, raise the profile of modern slavery through education awareness and provide resources to support victim-survivors of modern slavery practices. The commissioner is not intended to investigate or deal directly with individual matters within the remit of enforcement agencies.
Be Slavery Free, working with other civil society groups, advises that, while the bill represents a positive start, there some gaps and omissions. The Australian Council of Trade Unions stated:
Unfortunately, this Bill falls far short of what is required to ensure an effective response to modern slavery. It proposes a piecemeal response with the creation of a figurehead primarily exercising education, promotion and awareness-raising functions, with a very small budget to carry out this role. This is completely inadequate to deal with the scope and severity of the problem of modern slavery.
We recommend that the Bill be withdrawn in its current form and substantially amended.
Human rights experts agree that it does need to go further, with Professor Emeritus Paul Redmond stating in his submission that the commissioner is in:
… a narrowly constrained role, incoherently emerging from the disordered jumble of functions listed in the paragraphs of s20(1).
The UK Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre's submission outlines the importance of the independence of the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, based on the UK experience.
There appears to be agreement that the bill falls short of providing a comprehensive response to modern slavery, that the commissioner's role, as drafted, lacks the teeth they need to fight modern slavery and that the budget committed to date will be inadequate. The commissioner's independence must be guaranteed so that it may raise difficult issues with government, business and other stakeholders. That is why I have tabled detailed amendments to this bill.
It will require Australian entities and entities carrying out business in Australia to assist the commissioner in their functions and to address modern slavery. It will require entities to undertake due diligence processes to address the risk of modern slavery practices in their operation's supply chain rather than just risk reporting; increase the commissioner's focus in helping to identify and provide support for victims-survivors, including helping them with complaints and coordinated referrals to relevant organisations; enable the commissioner to provide advice to the minister on modern slavery matters at their own instigation rather than only at the minister's request; clarify that the commissioner can conduct general inquiries but not interfere with investigations by enforcement agencies; require the commissioner to consult more broadly with civil society, victims-survivors, business and government agencies in strategic planning; and set a three-year time frame for a statutory review of the commission's budget after commencement of the legislation to ensure that they are appropriately resourced. Beyond the legislation, the government needs to determine the structure and commit the resources necessary to enable the commissioner to properly fulfil their duties and functions.
I thank the Attorney-General's office for its willingness to consider the amendments that I will be putting forward in the consideration and detail stage. However, these amendments really can't wait. The commissioner should be fit for purpose from the start rather than aspiring to make further changes in the future when we know that we can do those changes now. I commend this bill to the House and look forward to working with the government and all members to improve upon the role, resourcing and independence of the commissioner so they can best fight modern slavery.
]]>In making the announcement that the legislated stage 3 tax cuts would be replaced with the proposal before us, the Prime Minister justified the changes on the need to assist with the cost-of-living crisis that's faced by so many Australians—a crisis that I believe is, in some part, of the government's making. In this term of government, we have had successive rate rises, that have seen the repayments on a mortgage of $750,000 rise by around $2,000 a month—a staggering $24,000 of after-tax money per year that Australians must find. Inflation, the driver of these mortgage rate rises, has been running hot, and part of that is because the government has added $209 billion of new spending.
We have also had record immigration, which has put enormous pressure on infrastructure demand. Anyone in the market for a new house will be immediately aware of the absurd price rises over the last couple of years. Housing has contributed more than six per cent to inflation and is a direct consequence of a migration strategy that is poorly timed and simply too large. Adopting a 'big Australia' policy at a time when we do not have sufficient supply was always going to result in upward pressure on prices. That is simple economics.
In 2002, the Intergenerational report projected that Australia's population would reach about 25 million by the year 2042, an increase of around 30 per cent, and it assumed a net migration of 90,000 people per year. Now here we are in 2024, and we have already reached 27 million, nearly 20 years ahead of projections. In the last 12 months, our population increased by a record 624,000. To put this into perspective, this is greater than the population of the ACT or Tasmania. Consequently, we are having to add the equivalent of an entire state or territory every year. Last year, we recorded 737,200 overseas arrivals and 219,100 departures—a net migration of 518,100. This equates to more than 80 per cent of the population increase.
The government controls migration; therefore, it is on the government to explain why it has allowed so many people to settle at a time when we already have housing pressures and natural demand that have flowed on from this. It is inflationary. Much of last year reminds me of the inflation that we suffered during the Whitlam years that I remember studying at university.
This approach to migration is not sustainable and is unfair to the most marginalised in our community, who now find themselves homeless, or living in poverty, or with rents or mortgages consuming most of their take-home pay. I receive emails every day from people who cannot find a place to live. They are unable to access medical appointments or find places for their children in schools. Is this really the Australia that we want?
These tax cuts are due to take effect on 1 July this year. Yet, in the same week that we are discussing personal tax changes we've had an increase to the fuel excise rate from 48.8 cents per litre to 49.6 cents per litre. Beer, spirits and pre-mixed drinks have also risen this week. The tax on a pint of beer has increased by 90 cents, while the tax on a slab has risen to $20.
In the year to September 2023, bread prices were up 12.6 per cent, fish prices rose 8.7 per cent and dairy by 10.2 per cent. These increases, along with mortgage and rent rises, are already being experienced by everyday Australians. Don't even get me started on energy price hikes! I've spoken at length in this place, detailing awful stories of elderly constituents going to bed after dinner because they could no longer afford to run their heaters during winter.
So, yes, a tax break is necessary, but it doesn't even come close to covering the additional costs that every household has experienced in the last couple of years, and this will not be assisting any age pensioners or people on disability support pensions.
The debate we are now having highlights the structural problem of our taxation system. It is inefficient, unfair and overly complex. It is broken and requires immediate reform. We are over-reliant on personal and corporation tax, which account for more than 60 per cent of total tax receipts in the country. With respect to personal tax, it is prosecuted time and time again within the lens of political and class warfare. Our personal tax regime is progressive, and that is appropriate, but our over-reliance on personal tax has resulted in much higher tax rates and lower income bands to which they apply. The median weekly earning in Australia is $1,300 per week and attracts a tax rate of 30 per cent. The equivalent earnings in the United States are a mere 12 per cent. The top tax bracket under this bill is imposed on incomes exceeding $190,000 with a rate of 45 per cent, plus the Medicare levy. In contrast, the top tax bracket in the United States is only 33 per cent and applies to incomes exceeding $890,000 when converted to Australian dollars. In the United Kingdom, a worker on A$95,000 is in the 20 per cent tax bracket. To reach the top tax bracket of 45 per cent he would need to be earning more than A$240,000.
This legislation will see Australians earning more than $190,000 paying the top marginal rate of 45 per cent, plus the Medicare levy. I don't deny that this is considered a high income, but it's hard to justify that for every two hours of work that one is rewarded with payment, the other is gifted to the Taxation Office. I recognise many of the jobs that earn a higher income are often hot and very difficult jobs to do, such as in mining or construction; jobs where people are away from their families, or health professionals who work long hours and long hours overnight—particularly doctors.
Let's not reduce this debate to a discussion of rich versus poor. We all accept that a progressive taxation system appropriately taxes higher income earners more than lower income earners, but we shouldn't accept an inefficient tax system that overtaxes individuals, stifles productivity and neuters incentives to work harder.
We also need to look at incomes at the household level. Many households are limited to one income for various reasons. For instance, one partner may stay home to care for children or may not be able to work due to a disability or caring for another person with a disability. Because we tax at the personal level, we can have two households earning the same aggregate income but paying completely different levels of income tax. For example, a household with one primary caregiver and one primary income of $130,000 per annum will pay $35,767 per year in tax. If this legislation passes, they'll pay $32,388. However, a household with two incomes of $65,000, totalling $130,000, will only pay $25,000 tax per year, or $23,126 if this legislation passes. That's a difference of $10,033 and $9,262, respectively.
If you're in the highest tax bracket it's even worse. A household of one primary care giver and one primary income earner on $190,000 per annum will pay $59,967 in tax per year, or $55,438 if this legislation passes. However, a household with the same amount of money coming but with two people earning $85,000 each will only pay $39,584 in tax, or $35,976 if this passes. That's a difference of $20,000 or $19,000, respectively.
It is inconceivable that two households with the same gross income can have a difference of $20,000 in tax paid. How is it fair that the family in one household can have an extra $20,000 in disposable income because of the way we treat personal taxation? We spend billions of dollars on childcare assistance, but if a mother or father cares for their children at home and relies on a primary income earner they are financially penalised thousands of dollars each year. To me, this is a tax on family values.
Many years ago, we had a dependent spouse rebate which gave some taxation relief to households that I've just described. We need to give more choice back to families and not follow a policy pathway that only rewards parents that work to the detriment of parents that are sharing working and child-rearing responsibilities. I regularly receive emails about this, and I call on the government to give serious consideration to the adoption of a household taxation threshold for couples in addition to the existing personal threshold taxation rates.
The electorate of Mayo has 76,000 taxpayers who will receive an average cut of $1,475. Around 65,000 Mayo taxpayers will be better off under this proposal, representing 86 per cent of taxpayers in my electorate. But I do respect that there will be 14 per cent that will not receive what they were expecting to receive, and some of them will be quite disappointed. It's important that we also remember that the benefit that will be felt by this will not flow for another five months, and I hope that in the coming budget we will see relief for working families, and age and disability pensioners in particular.
This bill will result in a small but better outcome for the majority of taxpayers in the electorate of Mayo. I support the bill, but I call on the government—in fact, I call on everyone in this parliament—to consider broader taxation reforms so that everybody can be rewarded for their hard work.
]]>Australia has a relatively low tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. In 2021, it ranked 30th out of 38 OECD countries at 29.5 per cent compared to the OECD average of 34.2 per cent. However, of the tax that we do collect, more than 60 per cent is collected from personal and corporate tax. This is approximately twice the OECD average and one of the most inefficient ways to collect tax.
This week, the stage 3 tax cuts legislation will be debated, and, while I support the changes, I don't think they go far enough. The median weekly income in Australia is $1,300 and attracts a tax rate of 30 per cent. For the equivalent earnings in the United States, it's a mere 12 per cent. Our top tax bracket under stage 3 is imposed on incomes exceeding $190,000, with a tax rate of 45 per cent, plus the Medicare levy. In contrast, the top tax bracket in the United States is only 37 per cent, which applies to incomes exceeding $890,000 when converted into Australian dollars. The top tax rate in the UK is 45 per cent. That kicks in at incomes of over $240,000. In New Zealand, their top tax rate is 39 per cent, and that's for incomes over NZ$180,000, which is comparable to Australian dollars. Canada has a top tax rate of 33 per cent for incomes over $235,000—again, our dollars are near parity.
Most advanced economies maintain a high reliance on consumption tax, which is acknowledged as one of the most efficient and sustainable taxes to governments, hence any tax reform should be predicated on reducing our reliance on inefficient taxes and increasing the revenue raised by efficient taxes. Such a reform would improve productivity and increase employment.
The question of fairness appropriately arises when proposing reforms, none more so than for taxation, particularly around consumption taxes such as the GST, which, to some, are considered regressive. However, consumption taxes capture a greater share from those with a capacity to purchase, and the perceived regressive components can be managed through more aggressive reductions in income tax thresholds for low- to middle-income earners and/or other assistant measures, particularly for age pensioners.
The third component of a good taxation system is simplicity, and this is not a word that describes our taxation system, with its more than 10,000 pages of tax law. An overly complex taxation system increases compliance costs for small businesses and microbusinesses and requires more individual taxpayers to resort to the use of tax agents for end-of-year returns. As a country, we benchmark ourselves against the OECD, and it is demonstrably clear that, on taxation matters, Australia performs poorly against other OECD nations.
Every Australian and enterprise benefits from improved productivity and increased employment opportunities. To succeed in this, we need a fairer, more efficient and simpler tax system. Taxation reform is required with urgency, and it must be devoid of political pointscoring so that necessary reforms can be made in the interests of the country and not just one side of politics.
]]>I think it's important to look at this over a landscape where we have an unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent. On 30 September this year Workforce Australia reported having 624,000 individuals connected with them. When looking at the data we realised that some groups are overrepresented: 14.5 per cent of the case load is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and 18.4 per cent are from CALD backgrounds. These statistics come on the back of the fact that we also have over 390,000 job vacancies in our nation. When we're looking at the vacancies, knowing that 175,000 of those are in retail, wholesale, accommodation, food services and the care economy, yet we have 624,000 people who are unemployed and looking for work, it seems that there's got to be some sort of mismatch here, particularly when we look at the fact that, stubbornly, nearly one in four people on the case load have been there for five years or longer.
The truth is that many people will cycle in and out of Workforce Australia, but my focus was on how we can help the people who are in that cohort, who have been on the Workforce Australia program and its previous iteration, jobactive, and how we can intensively work with people to support them to have a better life and a better future. Clearly something's not right when you're spending that many billions yet 25 per cent of the people are not able to be properly supported into employment.
This committee was tasked with a principles-first review of employment services to look at best practice, to work out how we can potentially create a system that helps people to address their barriers, and, importantly, to look at a strengths based system that can look at the work of an individual and help that individual to see what strengths they have within to help them find employment. Some of the barriers I'm talking about are health related and some are substance abuse related, but the biggest one we came across, particularly for young people, was having a licence. A young person having their driver's licence is the biggest key indicator of them being able to find employment.
I commend the chair, the member for Bruce. His tireless dedication to this work was extraordinary; it was actually quite exhausting at times! But it was fantastic to be led by a chair that had such passion and drive, and that passion and drive has not waned over the years. On the member for Monash: I was in the previous parliament where the member for Monash was a chair of a committee—another select committee—where we were very much looking at these issues around how we better support long-term unemployed people, people who are part of a cycle of disadvantage where they've been disadvantaged for generations.
In total the committee has made 75 recommendations, and I think it's fair to say that, out of all the committees I've been on, this has very much been a deep dive into policy best practice and evidence base. I'd like to touch on some of those recommendations. Recommendation 4, I think, is critical to so much of it. When we're looking at Workforce Australia, we have contracts delivered by very large, multinational organisations, and they're delivering them in a scattergun approach right across Australia depending on where they were successful in the tender process. But we need to keep them local. Local is the greatest chance of success, where we have a network of regional hubs and service gateways, where local organisations are able to properly map what the employment needs are in their area—and they know everyone, and there is a trust built in there. Two or three contracts ago, we used to have a lot of local delivery where maybe a small organisation was delivering in one regional map, rather than there being these large multinationals I mentioned. It needs to be about flexibility, working closely with those recipients, those jobseekers, and with employers.
Recommendation 6 is a recommendation that says levels of government should implement strategies to provide those who are long-term unemployed with traineeships in the creation of entry-level jobs. Over the generations, or just over the last couple of decades, governments at all three levels have divested themselves of the responsibility of being the first job provider. Back in the 1990s, when I was a young person, the South Australian government was the biggest employer of apprentices. Now they do not provide any apprenticeships to any young people, and that's a great shame. I think that this is a very worthy recommendation, and that local, state and federal governments have a duty to provide young people in particular, but also long-term people, with a job. For young people, perhaps that first job can be a great foundation.
Recommendation 7 expands on that concept by creating a permanent administrative employee in every electorate office. When I worked in South Australian politics, we had that. I think I had four or five trainees over that period of time. They would spend up to a year in the electorate office. They also gained a certificate III in government administration or business. Not all those young people stayed in politics, but they have all gone on to have very good, sound careers. I think we have a role to play in that. It's been a joy to watch their careers flourish, and I'd love to see us do that here in the federal parliament.
Recommendation 10 relates to providing high-intensity case management for people furthest from the labour market. That's working with people on the challenges and barriers that are stopping them from getting employed. How can we expect a person to find employment when they don't have secure housing, when they are, perhaps, missing teeth, when they don't have any clothes to attend an interview or when they haven't got a quality resume or those skills for how you conduct yourself in an interview and need confidence building? We need to work with people on this. I think that someone getting a job is a byproduct of being able to have their life changed, working with them to change their life. I think this is an excellent recommendation. We need to work holistically with the person for them to lead on what issues they need the most support.
Recommendation 11 is my favourite recommendation out of all 75 recommendations. This is for a youth-specific employment service. We know that for young people up to age 25 their brains have not finished developing. We know that the transactional style that we have of dealing with a provider in Workforce Australia does not work for a lot of young people. Transition to Work is a very successful program, but not all young people can connect to Transition to Work. So this recommendation is about providing a gateway for young people, irrespective of their level of need and support. All young people would be funnelled into a youth focused, youth friendly, youth specialist employment service provider that is perhaps connected near other youth support in the community. I think this is an excellent recommendation and one that would provide enormous dividends, particularly for young people, working with them in a flexible way. It's about career development as well as addressing those barriers. We know that young people are the largest cohort of homeless. We also know that, as I said before, getting a licence and having some of those really basic life qualifications is critical.
Recommendation 45 is around employers. Very few employers connect with Workforce Australia. They don't like the system. As the member for Bruce said, there are often a number of organisations that have a shopfront in the one township. There's a huge turnover of Workforce Australia staff, so those relationships aren't built well in many locations with employers. Many employers have expressed frustration with respect to the kinds of candidates that are sent to them, candidates who are not a good fit. This all goes back to working better with the participant or the client to make sure that we can have a strengths based model where we look at what the person wants to achieve and then find the right fit for them so that employers are not flooded with people that are not going to be a good fit for their organisation, which makes them reluctant to then work again with that Workforce Australia provider.
I will mention two more recommendations. Work in the community is recommendation 49. This is a really exciting recommendation. We saw in Ireland that work in the community worked really well. What I thought was very exciting in Ireland was that the people who were involved in work in the community—it sounds a bit unusual—could be doing things like connecting to their local township and be driving a bus and or part of taking care of the gardening grounds and ovals. In my regional community and, I am sure, in many regional communities in Australia, our local councils do not own our infrastructure; we manage that ourselves. So a program like work in the community could work particularly well in regional Australia and would be very valued. It would assist participants to build their personal capacity and their self-esteem, particularly if they are very long-term unemployed and have been naturally out of the workforce for a long time.
Lastly, I will mention recommendation 50. We saw some fantastic social enterprises right across Australia—cafes, laundromats and gardening services. They are truly wonderful hubs that create a place of work experience, knowledge building and building of social connections for particularly people who are long-term unemployed, many of whom experience loneliness and social isolation.
They're excellent, and I'd like to think that we can use recommendation 50 to look at building more social enterprises across Australia.
It is my hope that this wonderful report—the writing of which has seen the blood, sweat and tears of, particularly, the member for Bruce and the secretariat—does not sit on a shelf and gather dust as so many excellent reports from committees do. There are some very sound recommendations in here. I hope that we all have the opportunity to see the minister and the department work collaboratively through these recommendations and implement some of them in the near future.
]]>Yesterday we had some motions about violence against women. We know, with respect to pornography, that violence against women is portrayed as entertainment. We know that many, many children, before they turn of age, have seen many, many images that are violent and pornographic. We have a responsibility in this place to ensure that we do everything we can, legislatively, to protect children and protect their rights to be children.
I am supporting the motion to suspend standing orders because this is an incredibly urgent matter. It is a matter that is affecting so many families in my community and, I can only assume, in the communities of every other member in this chamber. We need leadership and courage from government and from everyone in this place.
It was the most harrowing meeting with that family. What do you say to a mother who has buried her child? No parent should have to do that. So I would urge the government to look at this motion for the suspension of standing orders. Let us all work together on matters like this and see this as a matter of urgency for the parliament to act.
]]>Federation Chamber adjourned at 19 : 25
]]>The minister and the government have shown a complete lack of understanding and respect for my regional community and, I would say, regional Australia more broadly. Given the disproportionate amount of major accidents and fatalities that occur on regional roads, our regional roads need investment. To move funding across Australia into metropolitan areas is, I think, atrocious. I will now lead a delegation to Canberra and urge the minister to reconsider these cuts because they are unfair, antiregional and simply dangerous.
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