Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will of course be supporting this amendment today. We moved a very similar amendment in 2018—in fact, almost identical to this amendment—with, I note, the support of Labor. We have long fought for tax transparency in Australia. In his contribution, Senator Patrick talked about the groundbreaking Senate inquiry that, I'm very proud to say, many of us in this chamber contributed to. It was initiated by my previous colleague, the Leader of the Greens, Senator Christine Milne, after being lobbied by the Tax Justice Network, Micah Challenge and a number of stakeholders at the time, going back to 2013. When people knock on our door and say, 'Can we come and see you and talk about an issue?'—and these were community groups and church groups saying, 'What can we do about tax justice?'—I often say to them, 'Look at that as an example of how you can achieve something when you come to this place and you sit down with your elected representatives.' Senator Milne initiated that inquiry. It ran for a number of years and it made some very significant recommendations for reform. Recommendation 13 in that reform was to get rid of this grandfathering amendment. I'm very proud, as a chamber, that we achieved a fantastic Senate report taking witness evidence right around the country from hundreds of stakeholders. Not all of it's been legislated, sadly, but a lot of it has. I'm very pleased that Senator Patrick has brought this back today.

It's no coincidence that, looking at the numbers in that Guardian report, some have expired—about 1,498 private companies back in 2015 were exempted from providing a full set of financial accounts to ASIC. I'm not sure what the policy reasons were that Senator McAllister was referring to that may have been legitimate at the time. I can't see any at all, except perhaps there was an impasse around legislation. However, transparency should be in our genes. There should be no reason at all that any company gets preferential treatment. Looking at the current numbers, I don't think it's any coincidence that nearly 10 per cent of these companies are donors to the Liberal Party. Nearly 10 per cent have contracts, and of course the Liberal Party has a lot of explaining to do if they don't vote for this today.

More importantly, since 2018, this chamber has had the appetite to pass this amendment to any piece of legislation as was evidenced when the Greens did this with Labor back in 2018. The appetite for transparency, however, I don't believe is as strong in that other place down the corridor through that door. We're about to find out when this amendment passes today whether the Liberal Party is going to finally turn its back on this outdated, totally unjustified exemption for some of the biggest and wealthiest companies, and families and individuals, in this country to not provide full details of their financial affairs to the regulator.

Making these things public is absolutely critical. There is a public good component to this—providing information. Luckily there are people out there who spend a lot of their time looking at the tax affairs of companies. Because it is all about social justice. It is all about paying your fair share. If you don't have the disclosure, you're never going to get the reform. The two things go hand in glove. So we're pleased, Senator Patrick, and thank you for acknowledging the role the Greens played when we did move a very similar amendment back in 2018. I hope, if we don't have success this time round, that we continue to plug away until we do. The Greens commend this amendment.