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

The Greens will be supporting this amendment, like we supported the amendment last week. It is like what we proposed nearly two years ago; indeed, the Greens have brought a very similar amendment to this chamber on two occasions. There is no reason at all for these grandfathering exemptions to be in place. Just to give the chamber a very brief reminder: last week, the minister couldn't give any reason at all for the public policy basis of exempting some of the wealthiest individuals and biggest companies in this country from providing annual reports to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. There is no justification for grandfathering. This was done by the Labor Party, by the Keating government, over 20 years ago, and it was locked in by Mr John Howard. It's an anomaly of the past. It has no place at all in present-day transparency around financial matters.