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

I just want to remind the Senate exactly what this amendment that was rejected in the House is about. That is, that there are 1,119 companies that are exempt from having to lodge company returns with ASIC. That creates an opaqueness about these particular companies. It is a provision that was put into the Corporations Act back in 1995 as a temporary measure. It's been a 25-year temporary measure. There are issues in relation to tax transparency in respect of this because, in the words of ASIC in their committee report, they raised the concern that this creates an environment that could encourage aggressive tax minimisation. It's important that we deal with that. We also don't want to have in Australia a class of companies that have very, very special privileges—a separate group of companies, with people like Kerry Stokes, Lindsay Fox and Anthony Pratt, who are the proprietors of these companies, having a special privilege that no other business has. After new businesses start up, once they gets to a size where they are required to lodge reports they don't get this exemption. We need to deal with this. It was passed by the Senate. It went back to the House. It's been rejected because the government want to protect their mates. They want to protect their very wealthy mates who provide them with political donations. The time has come for that to stop.