Senate debates

Thursday, 10 December 2020

Bills

Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019; Second Reading

9:49 am

Photo of Nick McKimNick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I stand by that description of the Labor Party. I repeat: just what is the point? Seriously, there is no argument for the Labor Party not to support the Greens amendment. I'll make a prediction here. This amendment will fail for only one reason today, and that is because the Labor Party are not going to support it. If the Labor Party had supported our—

Senator Cash interjecting—

I look forward to the government supporting our amendment, Senator Cash. I will congratulate you if you get up and say that you are going to support it. At the moment I am not talking about you, but you can place your position on the record and I'll respond to that in due course. I stand to be corrected, but I think it's unlikely that the government will support our amendment. If that is the case then it will fail for one reason and one reason only, and that is because the Labor Party have squibbed. Why have they squibbed? Because they will look after their donors in the property industry as well.

I say to the Labor Party: by failing to support the Greens amendment this morning you will be placing the interests of international crime syndicates and the financiers of terrorism around the world ahead of the interests of ordinary Australians who want to buy an affordable home for themselves and their families. That is what you are doing today by indicating that you will not support it.

On your weaselly, pathetic excuse, Senator Kitching, I say: you talk about process and about needing to make sure that things are done carefully, but it has been 14 years. How much longer do you need? It has been 14 years since these fabled reforms were promised. As I said, they have been lost in the mists of time. Yet, even though we have done the responsible thing in our amendment and offered a window of over six months to the government to do the work and the consultations necessary and bring it into this place, that's still not good enough for the Labor Party. What even is the point of them?

We're obviously very disappointed that Labor is not going to support our amendment. I hope that the government will. We'll wait to see what Senator Cash says about this. As I said at the start of my speech, this is an unobjectionable bill that the Greens will support, but this is a massive missed opportunity to crack down on money laundering in this country, to crack down on terrorism financing in this country and to do something—just something—to take the heat out of the housing market to allow more Australians, particularly young Australians, an opportunity to buy their own homes.

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