Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If we were to let them have their way, they would have businesses spending more time and more money on complying with regulation than actually engaging in business activities which require that compliance. The vast majority of our businesses, as you know, are good people who are simply providing the products and services for which there is genuine need and demand. For some reason, Labor and the Greens assume that everybody out there is a criminal until proven otherwise; that they are criminals waiting for the government or the ATO to turn a blind eye. This ingrained hatred and distrust of a capitalist system that is the foundation of Australia's success and prosperity bewilders me.

Red tape is no laughing matter; it's very serious. By one estimate, red tape costs the Australian economy as much as $176 billion every single year. Every new Commonwealth government elected in Australia in the last decade has declared that it would tackle Australia's regulatory and red tape burden. In fact, I might actually point out that Kevin Rudd commissioned a myriad inquiries, reviews, commissions and tribunals into this. He personally acknowledged the scourge that is red tape. He said:

The quantity and complexity of business regulation today is eating away at the entrepreneurial spirit of Australian business.

Goodness me; are you sure he was a Labor Prime Minister!

Former Prime Minister Rudd also created the Commonwealth government's first minister of deregulation. It's not often that I speak in glowing terms of Kevin Rudd's time in the top office but I have to say: wouldn't it be nice to have a Labor leader who actually understood the value of Australian businesses. Instead of embracing the job-creating power of business, which drives our economy, the current opposition leader has sought to demonise businesses large and small, creating a chasm between the Australian Labor Party and entrepreneurial business. If only the Australian Labor Party had a leader-in-waiting in the wings who understood the importance of a healthy relationship between government and the business community. Oh, wait, hang on; I think maybe it does. It does! I note that the member for Grayndler gave a very stirring speech last Friday when delivering the annual Gough Whitlam Oration. Mr Albanese declared:

… we do have to engage constructively with businesses large and small.

We respect and celebrate the importance of individual enterprise and the efforts and importance of the business community.

I'm not exactly sure who the member for Grayndler meant by 'we' in that sentence because, far from respecting the efforts and enterprise of the business community, his leader, Mr Shorten, continues to paint those hardworking business owners as pariahs and has all but declared that, should he become Prime Minister, he will wage a war on business. We know that the ALP has no plan to create jobs, no plan to increase wages and no plan to grow the economy. The ALP is no friend of business. The legislation being debated today is yet another manifestation of the lazy and ignorant attack that is the most base of political tactics.

But I am digressing, I'm afraid. As I was saying, the coalition government has not only promised to cut regulation but has delivered on this very promise. Since the coalition came to government in 2013, the government's regulatory reform agenda has cut burdensome compliance costs for individuals, businesses and community organisations by over $6 billion. In fact, the Annual regulatory reform report, released on 27 May by my great friend and colleague, the Hon. Craig Laundy MP, highlighted the coalition's stellar track record in making it easier for businesses and households to comply with regulations. Between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2017 the government took decisions to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses by more than $800 million a year. The biggest single regulatory saving, worth over $444 million, came from the abolition of Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—what a surprise! As Minister Laundy noted:

This Tribunal was set up by Bill Shorten as Workplace Relations Minister in 2012 as part of a deal between Labor and the unions. It effectively pushed tens of thousands of owner-drivers—many small family businesses—to the brink of collapse, rendering them uncompetitive with big union-dominated trucking companies.

The Turnbull government will always shun unnecessary regulation, and has been working tirelessly to make our regulatory environment easier for businesses and households, encouraging growth and encouraging innovation in the economy.

If the objective is to ensure that those who should pay tax do pay tax, should we not turn our attention to the black economy more urgently? When we're talking about non-reporting and the covering up of information, the black economy is indeed their true home. Instead of creating more red tape and diminishing the privacy of Australian businesses, we in the coalition are, in fact, creating policy and taking steps that go to the heart of the problems of the black economy. Typically, the black economy refers to people who operate entirely outside of the tax system or who are known to tax authorities but who deliberately misreport their tax and superannuation obligations. The black economy can also include those engaged in organised crime and those who are engaged in the production or sale of prohibited goods. We know that the black economy exists, so we should, therefore, be devoting efforts to ensure that adequate and lawful reporting takes place, not arbitrarily targeting those businesses who already do report to the Australian Taxation Office with increasingly burdensome red tape requirements.

Acting Deputy President Sterle, you will not be surprised to hear that we on this side of the chamber are taking real steps to crack down on this type of unlawful black economy behaviour and to ensure that all businesses that should be paying tax in Australia are, in fact, doing so. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has estimated that underground production in Australia could be as much as 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product. That equates to approximately $22 billion. That is not a figure to be sneezed at. Luckily, the Turnbull coalition government is here to clamp down on the black economy.

As recently as last Friday, in fact, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer, announced a new advisory board to support the coalition's ambitious reform agenda to disrupt the black economy. Minister O'Dwyer announced that Michael Andrew AO, who provided such strong leadership to the Black Economy Taskforce last year, will now chair the Black Economy Advisory Board. The coalition are taking real and serious steps to crack down on those who are not, in fact, paying tax or who are engaging in non-market and offline transactions. The advisory board will advise the Treasurer about implementation of the government's decisions attacking the black economy and will contribute to a government report every five years about new threats emerging from the black economy. The black economy is harmful to those honest businesses that do report and pay their taxes. That's why the coalition are delivering real and genuine reform in this space: $315 million in additional funding to the ATO to increase its enforcement activity against black economy behaviour. The black economy standing taskforce, led by the ATO, will also ensure that a whole-of-government approach is used with agencies, sharing intelligence, best practice, and knowledge.

This is on top of the good work that the ATO is already undertaking. Commissioner Chris Jordan, the commissioner of the ATO, outlined to the budget estimates in 2017 just how the ATO will be increasing its attention on businesses not doing the right thing, the black economy, phoenix operators and individuals in the market to ensure that there is a level playing field for all businesses. The commissioner also outlined how the ATO will have a strong focus on the intermediaries—the lawyers, the accountants, the pre-insolvency advisors and the liquidators—who facilitate illegal activity in the black economy and phoenixing operations.

It's this type of important and practical work that is crucial for strengthening our taxation and reporting systems without burdening those businesses who are already doing the right thing by the government and by the nation. This piece of legislation, introduced to this place by the opposition, is no more than a distraction to a coalition agenda that is already addressing the very important issue of corporate tax avoidance, whether it be from multinationals or from domestic entities.