Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to commend the Treasury Laws Amendment (OECD Multilateral Instrument) Bill 2018 and recommend it to the Senate.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (OECD Multilateral Instrument) Bill 2018. It's lunchtime on a Thursday in the Senate, and we all know what that means. It means senators are wining and dining themselves in the members' and senators' dining room and the bureaucrats take charge of this asylum we call the Senate. Over the next hour these bureaucrats will rush 12 bills reflecting their grand plans through this near-empty Senate chamber, aided by a government lackey and a collaborating senator from the opposition.

The first bill to be rushed through today is the Treasury Laws Amendment (OECD Multilateral Instrument) Bill 2018. It inserts one line into Australian law and, by doing so, makes a 48-page international tax treaty Australian law. This undermines our sovereignty. Where are the red-blooded nationalists we normally hear so much from—the senators from One Nation, the Greens and the old Xenophon team, and the solo senators representing Katter's Australian Party, Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, the Australian Conservatives and the Justice Party? Perhaps they are nattering about the dangers of globalisation up in the senators' and members' dining room, over their plates of foie gras.

I represent the Liberal Democrats, a serious, small-government party, so I've read the bill before us today and I have an understanding of what it will do. By absorbing a vague 48-page international tax treaty into Australian law, the bill will make our tax system harder to understand, which will make it harder to do business in Australia, which, over time, will make everyday Australians worse off. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I oppose this bill. Unfortunately, we don't currently have enough representatives of serious, small-government parties in this place to block this bill. For the sake of Australia's sovereignty, this must change.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions in this place on this particular bill and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.