Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Bill 2019. Centre Alliance fully supports the provisions in the bill. I won't repeat the purpose of the bill—Senator McAllister has done a fantastic job articulating what the bill seeks to achieve. However, I will be moving an amendment in the committee stage and I just want to talk about that amendment now.

My amendment will rid the Federal Register of Legislation of a perverse provision in the Corporations Act which exempts some large proprietary companies from having to lodge financial reports. That includes financial statements and directors' declarations to ASIC. This is highly problematic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it inappropriately leaves in place an elite or privileged class of companies that do not have to lodge ASIC reports. If my amendment passes then that inequity will no longer continue. We cannot have a legislative privilege in Australia—in an Australia which does not take kindly to these sorts of privileges.

Secondly, the opaqueness created by not filing accounts with ASIC creates an environment that may well encourage the aggressive tax minimisation behaviour that the government says it is trying to combat. I would also add that when an entity wants to have dealings with a company, one of the things they do is go to ASIC and seek information about the company which may help them to make decisions about whether or not they want to trade or deal with that particular company. That is not possible for these companies.

The exempt proprietary company list was created in 1995 as a temporary measure.