I table a revised explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This Bill amends Treasury legislation to strengthen the integrity of the tax profession, make a range of improvements to our tax system, deliver targeted refinements to Australia's merger regime, and give force of law to current national competition principles.

Schedule 1 to the Bill amends the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 to strengthen the Tax Practitioners Board sanctions regime as part of the Government's response to the PwC tax leaks matter, announced on 6 August 2023, to crack down on tax advisor misconduct and rebuild people's faith in the systems and structures that keep our tax system and capital markets strong. The reforms also implement recommendations from the 2019 Independent Review of the Tax Practitioners Board.

The reforms complement a broader suite of Government reforms to strengthen integrity and accountability across the tax system and professional services sector.

This includes work to progress further targeted exceptions to tax secrecy rules and enhancements to the Australian Tax Office and Tax Practitioner Board's information gathering powers outlined in the 2026-27 Budget, and just yesterday we released an options paper into the regulation of accounting, auditing and consulting firms in Australia.

It builds on earlier reforms, such as:

These reforms will enable the Tax Practitioners Board to impose a suite of new and expanded regulatory sanctions, that escalate in severity in response to more serious contraventions of the law, and respond to misconduct, including poor and unlawful tax advice, in a timely way.

The changes include new criminal penalties for unregistered preparers, new civil penalty provisions and increased maximum civil penalty amounts for tax practitioners and unregistered preparers, new powers that enable the Tax Practitioners Board to issue infringement notice penalties, enter into enforceable voluntary undertakings, and impose contingent and interim suspensions of registration, and an increase in the maximum duration of terminations of registration from 5 to 10 years.

These reforms will improve protections for taxpayers by driving better behaviour, addressing and deterring misconduct, and maintaining community confidence in the integrity of the tax system.

Schedule 2 to the Bill strengthens the foreign resident capital gains tax (CGT) regime.

This reform ensures foreign residents pay their fair share of tax when selling assets with a close economic connection to Australian land and our natural resources, while providing generous concessions for investments in renewable energy as set out in Schedule 3.

The Schedule has four elements.

First, it clarifies the definition of 'real property' on which foreign residents are subject to CGT.

This confirms that assets with a close economic connection to Australia—such as energy infrastructure, transport and telecommunications assets, and water entitlements—are in scope of the foreign resident CGT rules.

This responds to a longstanding area of uncertainty which has been compounded over time by the absence of a clear definition of 'real property' in the Commonwealth tax law.

It also addresses the interactions with state and territory property laws, which have increasingly produced unintended outcomes, with infrastructure assets being taxed differently depending on the jurisdiction in which they are located.

From commencement, this measure will ensure the Commonwealth tax law determines which assets are subject to the foreign resident CGT regime.

This will support certainty and ensure consistent tax treatment across the nation, so investors can make long-term decisions with confidence.

It also restores the integrity, fairness and sustainability of the tax system.

Second, the measure confirms when the Commissioner of Taxation can amend a past assessment for matters relating to the foreign resident CGT regime.

The legislation limits the ability of the Commissioner to amend an assessment where the taxpayer's limited amendment period has ended, except in cases of fraud or evasion or where the taxpayer objected to their assessment prior to 10 April 2026 (which is the date of the exposure draft consultation for this Schedule).

This effectively means that where a foreign investor had previously paid and settled a historical CGT liability, they will be unable to have their assessment amended because the Commissioner will not be able to extend the review period.

This will protect existing revenue by preventing foreign investors from seeking opportunistic windfall gains by taking advantage of recent Federal Court decisions to reduce their previous tax payments.

Third, the Schedule introduces a new requirement for foreign investors to notify the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) before they dispose their interests in an Australian entity, when the transaction is valued at $50 million or more.

This ensures the ATO has more visibility over high-value transactions in which a foreign resident claims they are not subject to CGT because they are disposing a non-Australian real property interest. This new notification supports tax compliance.

And fourth, the Schedule enhances the integrity of the Principal Asset Test. This test determines whether the value of a foreign investor's interest is mainly from Australian land or land-like assets, and therefore subject to CGT.

Foreign investors are now required to apply this test at any time during the 365 days before the CGT event, instead of just at the time of disposal. This is consistent with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s practice.

The Schedule includes two instrument-making powers to balance compliance costs for investors. It is intended that these powers would be used to exempt certain foreign investors from having to notify the Commissioner of certain public transactions, and to provide an alternative testing approach for certain investors in how they value their interests in complying with the Principal Asset Test. These details will be subject to consultation.

Schedule 3 to the Bill is a transitional concession for foreign investors in the renewable energy sector. It provides a 50 per cent CGT discount on the disposal of eligible assets until 30 June 2030.

This recognises the importance of foreign investment in the renewables sector, helping support our clean energy objectives.

This concession balances ongoing Government support for Australia's practical action on climate change, with the need to ensure the tax treatment of these assets aligns with the treatment of other assets in the longer term.

The targeted, time-limited concession will apply to grid-scale renewable assets such as battery storage systems, wind turbines and solar panels.

Schedules 2 and 3 were informed by extensive consultation with stakeholders. The Schedules will commence on the first quarter after Royal Assent.

Schedule 4 to the Bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to deliver targeted refinements to Australia's merger regime. The Government has heard from businesses, advisors and regulators about how the regime is working in practice and what needs to be fine-tuned.

First, the amendments adjust the legal consequences when merger parties fail to notify the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) when they should have, by making such acquisitions voidable instead of automatically void. This minimises unintended consequences, especially for innocent third parties, where the existing voiding provisions would otherwise automatically unwind transactions, while still preserving the incentive for parties to notify when appropriate.

Second, the amendments introduce a mechanism for merger parties to seek extensions from the ACCC for the period in which they can put an approved acquisition into effect. The extensions can be up to 6 months each. Multiple extensions may be granted. This will also apply to transactions already approved in the 12 months prior to commencement of this Bill.

Third, the amendments better target when an acquisition needs to be notified. Parties will not need to notify acquisitions that are unlikely to result in a practical ability to influence competition, as originally intended. For example, it will benefit venture capital investing in start-ups.

Overall, these amendments will reduce the regulatory burden on industry while preserving the integrity of the regime. They support a faster, more transparent and risk-based regime.

These amendments also reflect the Government's commitment to listening and responding to stakeholder experiences to ensure the merger regime continues to promote competition and economic activity in the interests of Australians.

Schedule 5 to the Bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and Productivity Commission Act 1998 to give legal force to the current National Competition Principles and regulatory structures, which were agreed by the Commonwealth and all states and territories in November 2024. The measure substitutes references to the Conduct Code Agreement and Competition Principles Agreement, from 1995, with references to the 2024 Intergovernmental Agreement on National Competition Policy, and introduces definitions of public interest test and competitive neutrality arrangements. To future-proof these amendments, the measure also introduces powers for the Minister to specify any new agreements to be the NCP Agreement and new arrangements to be the competitive neutrality arrangements.

Schedule 6 to the Bill amends the tax law to specifically list the Ross House Trust, Tanarra Social Purpose Ltd and the I4give Foundation Ltd as deductible gift recipients, and extends the existing listing of the Australian Academy of Law and Cambridge Australia Scholarships Limited.

Schedule 7 to the Bill amends the tax law to change the name of the philanthropic funds known as ancillary funds to giving funds. This better reflects the purpose of these funds and implements a recommendation of the Productivity Commission's philanthropy inquiry.

Schedule 8 to the Bill makes minor and technical amendments the tax law to give effect to the Australian Taxation Office's current administrative treatment to ensure tax credits arising from amounts withheld from the disposal of Australia real property can be claimed in an assessment for the same income year that the disposal is recognised for tax purposes.

Finally, the Legislative and Governance Forum on Corporations was notified in relation to amendments in Schedule 4 to the Bill as required under the Corporations Agreement 2002.

Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

There are lots of industries struggling in this country right now under this government. Lots of areas are doing it quite tough with the economy not doing well with the government raising taxes and with the price of everything going through the roof. Lots of small businesses I see are doing it really tough. So it's a surprise that the government has brought forward a bill—well, maybe it's not a surprise—that's going to provide a tax break to some. What is surprising is that it doesn't go to any small businesses. It doesn't go to any of the people in the housing market that are suffering from the greatest reduction in housing values we've seen for a generation or more. It doesn't go to those manufacturing businesses struggling under some of the highest energy prices in the world. It doesn't go to families struggling to pay their bills after 15 interest rate rises and the price of everything—groceries—going through the roof. It doesn't go to any of those groups. This bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026, provides a massive tax break to—wait for it—large-scale wind and solar investors. That's where it goes.

You've got to ask yourself: what are the government's priorities? Are their priorities the Australian families doing it tough right now? Are their priorities the small businesses that are struggling to keep their doors open. Are their priorities those people who've just taken on large mortgages with not much equity and who now find themselves owing more to the bank than the house is worth? They should be; those people should be our government's priorities right now, given how tough people are doing it in our country.

Instead, the priorities of the government are not just to bring forward this tax break but to rush through this tax break to large-scale investors, often whom a foreign owned, so that they can pursue their net zero agenda, which has been completely failing. That's what this bill does. It's a massive tax break for some of the biggest businesses, biggest investors, biggest super funds in our nation. Maybe they're doing it tough too, but I don't think they should be at the front of the queue if we can afford a tax break for some. I think we should be looking after the average Australian that's doing it tough.

I think we should be questioning whether or not this whole pursuit of net zero is delivering what was promised. It's not delivering what the government promised. They promised that installing wind and solar—pursuing net zero—would lower your power bill by $275, and the Prime Minister promised that almost 100 times on the election trail. That hasn't happened. Power bills have gone through the roof.

The government promised that pursuing net zero would create over 600,000 jobs—604,000 jobs, in fact, according to their economic modelling and their plan. And now we have to spend billions upon billions of dollars just to maintain the jobs we did have—forget about new jobs—at smelters and refineries and keep them on taxpayer funded life support, because right now if we didn't do that those jobs would go overseas. Those smelters and refineries would shut down, given the astronomical electricity prices that this government now presides over.

But none of these things have happened. They promised net zero. They promised we'd have low interest rates, too. They promised that if we pursue this net zero idea the rest of the world will love us and they'll swamp us with capital, and that will lower interest rates. Now, consistently, Australian government debt—a 10-year government debt—has been at the highest interest rate in the developed world for the last year or so. The UK has just pipped us in recent weeks, after their troubles, but we have consistently been at the highest bond rate in the developed world—massive surges in the cost of government finance. Those higher interest rates flow through to your mortgage, too. That's one of the reasons you've seen those 15 interest rate rises, and people are doing it tough.

Yet the government comes here and not just introduces it but, as I said, rushes it through. They're rushing through, in a deal with their friends in the Greens, a tax cut for these large businesses, and they're trying to hide it. You might have been a bit confused, if you were listening and paying attention: 'Hang on; the name of this bill is Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill.' The words 'other measures' do more heavy lifting in this bill than I've ever seen. If you just read the title, the bill is about strengthening accountability for tax adviser misconduct. That seems like a reasonable thing, and we do support aspects of the bill, which I'll get to, that do that. But then you've got this 'and other measures'. You might ask, what are those other measures? They are a big, big tax break for large-scale businesses and investors who can't make their sums add up right now because the net zero agenda is failing.

So the offending provision of this bill, the 'other measures' part, introduces a change to the way capital gains are taxed here in this country. That's a legitimate issue. Typically only capital gains on real property have been taxed, and generally speaking attached land has not been included in that property, under various tax rulings. So we have seen that companies that build pipelines, factories, and solar and wind investments on land have typically been judged to not be subject to the capital gains regime. This bill changes that and redefines it. It puts a proper definition on what property is for capital gains tax purposes and fixes up a little bit of a gap.

We're not against that as a concept. It makes some sense—although I would add that most of those assets are depreciating assets, such as pipelines, infrastructure et cetera and are unlikely in and of themselves to make any large capital gains. Be that as it may, it seems consistent to include them in a regime that seeks to tax any capital gain on assets.

But then the government, having done that, having made this reasonable change, exempts investors in solar and wind—not anyone else, not anyone who might be, I don't know, building an oil refinery so we can have fuel security again in our country; they're not exempt. The government's running around, cap in hand, subsidising oil and gas production in other countries, but they don't get an exemption. What about somebody who wants to increase steel production here so we don't have to import so much from overseas? Nope: they don't get the exemption—only people who invest in wind and solar. As I said, those are the government's warped priorities right now—that they are more interested in pursuing this idea of net zero that's not working than they are in providing relief to Australian families or targeting the real issues that face this country, like fuel security, where we are so reliant on other countries for a basic commodity.

The government had proposed in the budget that it would fix this capital gains tax loophole. It would exempt solar and wind. We were pretty aghast at that. They were going to exempt them for five years, and then they'd be brought in—even the solar and wind investors would be brought into the regime—but, to ram this bill through, the government has done a deal with the Greens to extend the exemption out to 2040 for those who happen to be in a protected class that invests in renewable energy. It doesn't apply for everyone else. Small businesses don't get it. Small businesses invest in these things in their own businesses. They're captured. They get taxed.

I'm really interested to hear how the government can justify why someone starting up a cafe is subject to this new regime, but a multibillion dollar investor from Europe or North America building massive solar and wind turbines somehow gets off scot free. I'm particularly interested in why they're giving this tax break because, just two weeks ago, the Prime Minister was in Dubbo—I was there—at the Bush Summit, and he faced a lot of people. He went out and saw a lot of people who were opposed to having 300-metre towers next to their houses and communities. That's understandable. People don't want their rural setting industrialised by these things. They faced a bevy of opposition from them. In front of them and in front of the nation's cameras, he told them that these investments have to have a social licence to operate. They should get a social licence. 'They should get local support,' in effect, he was saying.

This is his first day back. This is the government's first day back in Canberra, in parliament, since the Bush Summit in Dubbo a few weeks ago. What is the first thing the government do? They introduce laws to give these investments a tax cut, not to impose new requirements on them to receive that support, which they're clearly not getting right now. These things in rural New South Wales, wind and solar investment, are about as popular as the Queensland Maroons rugby league team right now. They are deeply unpopular. People don't want them in their community.

You can understand why. Does anyone want a 300-metre tower? If anyone here in this town or in an urban setting decides they want to build a multistorey apartment complex, opposition goes straight up, understandably. People don't want their local community changed like that. Likewise those in a rural setting don't want it. They don't want it imposed on them with no benefit, just an interruption in their lives, the destruction of their ambience and sometimes impacts on their health too, if they're too close to these things. They're very noisy. None of that's being factored in here. This government's come back to Canberra after whispering sweet nothings to people in the bush out in rural New South Wales and actually slipped through, in a dodgy deal, this tax cut.

What clearly should have happened here, with such a massive exemption to some of the largest and richest investors in our country, is that we should have had a Senate inquiry on this issue. We should have subjected this to some degree of scrutiny, particularly given this has changed considerably since the government announced in the budget this extension of the tax break to 2040. This should have been subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny, but again—because the government is obviously a bit embarrassed about these deals they're doing with some of the biggest, largest investors in our nation's country not helping out our ordinary Australians—they want to rush it through without really any scrutiny. We will be moving a second reading amendment that I'll flag that will seek this bill to be referred to a Senate inquiry so we can get to the bottom of who's going to benefit from this tax break and exactly why it's needed, because we were told these wind and solar investments were so cheap and so efficient.

Why do they need this? Why do they need another subsidy? They're getting billions and billions of dollars of subsidies already from you. For those listening, Mr Acting Deputy President and all the listeners here, you're paying them billions and billions of dollars. The government won't provide us the precise figures, but they get massive amounts of subsidies, and now they're getting a tax break on top. Why do they need that if they're that much cheaper?

Senator Canavan, are you moving that amendment?

I'll move that now. I may as well move that amendment now:

At the end of the motion, add ", and:

(a) the bill be referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 2 October 2026; and

(b) further consideration of the bill be made an order of the day for the first sitting day after the committee has reported".

Before I finish up, I did want to get back to the name of this bill, which is 'strengthening accountability for tax adviser misconduct'. There are many parts of this bill that we can support. We can't support the lack of parliamentary scrutiny. We can't support massive tax breaks to select few of the government's pet projects and not those small businesses in particular that are suffering in this country.

There are eight schedules in this bill. We support things like strengthening the Tax Practitioners Board powers in schedule 1 and increasing civil penalties and new criminal offences. We have seen some pretty poor conduct in this sector, and we can support that.

We do support schedules 4, 5, 6 and 7, which provide some technical amendments on the merger-control regime, which updates competition law to reflect the 2024 national competition policy agreement. Schedule 6 grants tax-deductible-donation status to some new entities. We're not opposed to those things. Schedule 7 implements part of a Productivity Commission recommendation to rename things that are called 'ancillary funds' to 'giving funds'. Again, that is something we can support. Schedule 8 provides an administrative fix to the ATO to align the law with existing ATO practice on withholding credits from policy disposals.

All of those things, as I say, are fairly what we would call 'non-contro', or non-controversial, and could have been included in a bill like this. But what is objectionable is how the government has used those legitimate, sensible and largely technical changes to hide a broader agenda where they provide preferment to some select businesses in this country while the rest of the economy is suffering so badly. It's really suffering.

I've spent the last two weeks on the road. As I said, I was at the Bush Summit in Dubbo. I had a couple of days around there and a wonderful evening in Trangie where over 100 people came along and there was a lot of engagement from people. I had a few days down in northern Victoria with the member for Nicholls, Sam Birrell, in Shepparton and Echuca. I spoke to many businesses suffering from sky-high electricity costs—really struggling. I spoke to a lot of businesses in that area and farms in that area that are struggling with the government buying back water right now, taking away that opportunity that they would have to grow food for our nation and increase our productivity and wealth. That's being denied to them; it's being hollowed out from that.

There's a lot of engagement out there. I've never seen people so worked up in our country, and it's understandable why they are—because this government has presided over the biggest decline in economic living standards in our nation's history. In recorded history, there's never been a bigger fall in real wages, a bigger fall in productivity, a bigger fall in living standards. That should be the No. 1 focus of this government if it wants to listen to the Australian people. Instead, we're providing tax breaks to multinational companies. It shows how off track this government is.

I rise to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026. With it having a title like that, you could be forgiven for thinking this is going to be complicated. It's fair to say that Treasury has once again resisted the temptation of a short title. But the questions underneath it are much simpler and much more important: (1) Can Australians trust professionals who handle their tax affairs? (2) If someone makes a gain from Australian land and resources, are they paying the tax they should pay here? and (3) Are our competition laws strong enough to protect consumers while still being practical enough to let investment happen? They're pretty simple questions, and they all go to one thing: trust.

Trust is part of the infrastructure that makes an economy work. You can go back to the father of economics, Adam Smith, who understood that markets cannot function on self-interest alone. In his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he described justice as 'the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice'. That is an important insight. Markets work because we expect contracts to be honoured, we invest because we expect property rights to be respected, we hand sensitive information to professionals because we expect standards to be enforced, and we pay taxes because we expect other people to meet their obligations too. Trust does not replace rules. Good rules create the conditions under which trust is possible. That is what this bill is about.

Now, most Australians do not spend much time thinking about the Tax Practitioners Board; nor should they have to. They should be able to go to an accountant or tax adviser, hand over some of their most sensitive financial information and trust that the person sitting across from them is properly regulated and acting professionally. The PwC tax leaks matter showed what happens when that trust is abused. Confidential government information about proposed tax laws was misused for commercial purposes. It was a serious failure of professional standards.

But the weakness in the regulatory system did not suddenly appear with PwC. We can go back to 2019, when the independent review of the Tax Practitioners Board identified a significant gap in the regulator's sanctions framework. At one end were cautions and education, and at the other were suspension, termination and court action. A regulator should not have to be forced to choose between a slap on the wrist and the most serious sanction available.

This bill gives the Tax Practitioners Board a more graduated and practical toolkit. It introduces infringement notices, enforceable undertakings and new suspension powers. It creates new civil penalties for breaches of the professional code and new criminal offences for people providing or advertising tax services for reward when they are not registered. And, where registration is terminated for misconduct, the maximum period before a practitioner can reapply doubles from five years to 10. That is not about treating every mistake as misconduct; it is about giving the regulator the ability to respond proportionately to what is actually in front of it.

It is worth remembering who benefits from that. The overwhelming majority of tax practitioners do the right thing. For a small-business owner, a good accountant can mean more time running the business and less time at the kitchen table trying to work through tax paperwork. Those professionals should not be undercut by people who are prepared to operate outside the rules. Good regulation protects consumers, but it also protects honest businesses from competitors prepared to cut corners.

The same principle of fairness applies to foreign investment. Australia needs foreign investment. Tasmania needs foreign investment. It finances projects, helps businesses grow and supports jobs. We should welcome it. But welcoming foreign investment does not mean surrendering Australia's right to tax gains that are properly connected to Australia.

The foreign resident capital gains tax rules have been affected by uncertainty about what counts as real property, including the interaction between Commonwealth tax law and state and territory property law. This bill makes the Commonwealth rules clearer and broader so that assets with a close economic connection to Australian land and natural resources are treated consistently.

There is also a fairly simple economic principle underneath all of that: tax law should follow economic reality. If the value being sold comes from Australian land or resources, the tax outcome should not depend on an ingenious choice of legal wrapper.

The bill also introduces some sensible integrity measures. Where a foreign investor sells an interest worth more than $50 million and takes the position that the gain is not taxable, the ATO will need to be notified, and the principal asset test will look across 365 days rather than only a snapshot at the point of sale, reducing the scope to temporarily alter an entity's asset mix simply to change the tax outcome.

There is also a useful lesson in how these reforms were developed. The initial exposure draft proposed retrospectivity, and stakeholders raised serious concerns about this. The government listened, and a substantive expansion in the bill before us applies prospectively. That is what consultation should do. It should not merely provide people with an opportunity to speak; it should improve the policy where the evidence warrants it.

Schedule 3 shows the same practical approach. At the same time as strengthening the foreign resident CGT regime, the bill provides a targeted 50 per cent CGT discount for eligible foreign investment in renewable energy assets including wind, solar, hydro and large-scale battery storage. And, after further consultation, the government amended the bill in the House to extend that concession from 2030 through to 2040. That matters, because major infrastructure is not planned, financed, approved or built overnight. If Australia wants long-term capital, our policy settings have to recognise real-world project timeframes.

For Tasmania, this is especially relevant. Clean energy has been part of our economic story for generations. Our hydro resources have supported Tasmanian industry for decades, and our renewable energy advantage gives us an opportunity to attract another generation of investment in storage, generation, transmission and energy-intensive industry. The opportunity is to use that energy advantage to attract businesses, expand existing industry and create more skilled jobs. But investment needs certainty, so the combination in this bill is deliberate: strengthen the integrity of the tax base while providing a targeted and time limited transition for renewable energy investment. These objectives are not contradictory; good economic policy should be capable of doing both.

The same principle applies to competition policy. Competition can sometimes sound like an abstract economic concept, but it certainly is not. For households, competition means having somewhere else to go when prices rise or service gets worse; for small businesses, it means a genuine chance to win customers from a bigger competitor; and, for the economy, it means businesses have to keep improving instead of relying on market power. That is why the government strengthened Australia's merger laws. Since 1 January, acquisitions meeting the relevant thresholds must be notified to the ACCC before they proceed.

But good regulation is not set and forget. When a major new regime starts operating, government should pay attention to what happens in practice and fix unnecessary friction when it appears. The early evidence shows the new system can be both rigorous and timely. The ACCC expected around 80 per cent of acquisitions to be dealt with within 20 business days through an early decision or a notification waiver. Across the 2025-26 data, in fact, 92 per cent of notification and waiver determinations were assessed within the timeframe.

This bill also now makes several practical refinements. A transaction that should have been notified will no longer automatically become void. Instead, the ACCC will be able to ask the Federal Court to declare the acquisition void where that is appropriate. The bill also clarifies control rules so that investments that are unlikely to give an investor meaningful competitive influence are not unnecessarily captured. Not every minority investment is a takeover in disguise, and that matters particularly for venture capital and startup investment, where an investor can acquire ordinary governance rights without actually gaining control of the business. Where an approved transaction legitimately takes longer than expected to complete, the ACCC will be able to extend the period for completion rather than forcing parties, unnecessarily, back through the process.

None of that weakens the central purpose of the merger regime. The ACCC still needs the ability to stop acquisitions that substantially lessen competition. But being serious about competition does not require us to be enthusiastic about unnecessary red tape. The remaining schedules make a number of smaller but worthwhile changes. They update the Commonwealth law for the 2024 National Competition Policy arrangements, provide or extend deductible gift recipient status for several organisations, replace the obscure term 'ancillary funds' with the clearer 'giving funds' and fix the timing of foreign resident CGT withholding credits so taxpayers are not pushed into unnecessary duplicate returns for the same transaction.

Having worked in economics and business, I've never found the argument about whether we need more regulation or less regulation particularly useful. That is too crude a test. A rule can be tough and still be badly designed. A rule can appear light touch and still impose enormous costs if nobody can understand how it actually works. The real question is whether the rules are doing their job. Are they protecting people and allowing honest businesses to compete? Are they stopping misconduct without creating unnecessary barriers? Are they giving investors enough certainty to make long-term decisions?

When experience shows that a rule is not working as intended, our government's prepared to fix it. That is the approach that is reflected in this bill. If you handle another person's tax affairs, you should be accountable for how you conduct yourself. If you make a gain from Australian land and resources, you should meet Australian tax obligations that properly attach to it. If you run a business, you should have a fair chance to compete on the quality, price and value you offer customers. And, if you're prepared to invest capital in Australia for the long term, you should have confidence that the rules will be clear and workable.

This bill strengthens the rules where they need to be stronger, it closes gaps where they have emerged, and it fixes unnecessary friction where experience shows the system can work better. That is good economic policy, and I commend this bill to the Senate.

The Greens will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026, and we're very pleased that, in order to secure our support, the government agreed to extend the current 50 per cent capital gains tax discount for renewable assets from 2030 to 2040. Obviously, that amendment has been moved and accepted by the House, and today—or, at least, at latest, sometime this week—it will no doubt be agreed to by the Senate, with the government and the Greens ensuring that that is the case. The extension of the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount from 2030 to 2040 for renewable assets is a big deal, because somewhere around 70 per cent of investment into renewables in Australia is from overseas, so the way that we tax international investment into our renewable energy sector is critical in order that we do everything that we can to ensure an accelerated rollout of renewables in this country.

Renewable technology in Australia is facing many, many headwinds at the moment: low wholesale prices, high interest rates, a performance test in our superannuation sector that does not do enough to encourage superannuation funds to invest in renewable energy, climate misinformation and climate disinformation funded by international fossil fuel conglomerates and United States billionaire climate deniers, which is driving some community opposition to the construction of renewable energy assets. So, when we had a chance, in that context, to do something significant to ensure that we did not put yet another significant barrier in the way of international investment into renewable energy in Australia, the Greens took the chance, and we're very pleased to have come to an agreement with Labor to extend the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in relation to renewables from 2030 to 2040.

I spoke about the blockers to renewable energy investment in Australia. I want to speak more about that, because, even though some of those issues, including international supply chain constraints, are largely out of the control of this parliament and state and territory parliaments in Australia, one thing that is in the control of politicians and political parties in this country is the fact that state governments keep extending the lives of their dirty, ancient, clunker coal-fired power generators. At the same time, we have a federal Labor government, who love to pretend they're all about climate and all about renewables, opening new coal and gas mines hand over fist. The Labor Party has opened 37 new coal and gas projects since it came into office about four years ago. They are running at about 10 new approvals per year for coal and gas—in the context of a disaster in Nepal and Tibet that has claimed the lives of over 5,000 people.

Why did these people die? Because psychopathic governments keep opening new coal and gas mines. Because psychopathic governments keep logging and burning native forests. You cannot claim to care and take action on climate while you are still destroying native forests and while you are still approving, hand over fist, new coal and gas projects. When you are doing those things, you have blood on your hands—the blood of innocent people who are going to die in their droves this century because psychopathic, cowardly governments, in thrall to the fossil fuel corporations and the psychopaths that run them, are opening new coal and gas mines, destroying nature, and clear-felling, logging and burning our forests.

What a time we find ourselves in here, colleagues, when the Prime Minister says now is not the time to talk about climate change. Well, if we don't talk about it now, when are we ever going to talk about it? When will we ever tell the truth? If you're not prepared to tell the truth in the wake of thousands of people dying in Nepal and Tibet, when will you ever accept the reality of what the science is telling us? It's like the National Rifle Association in the US on another school shooting, another school massacre—'thoughts and prayers'. That's all we're getting from our prime minister: 'It's time to think of the families.' Yes, it's time to think of the families, but you know what else it's time to do? Take action on climate change. Stop approving new coal and gas projects. That's what it's time to do. Be honest with people about the utter catastrophe that is coming down the line because of your actions as a government.

It makes me sick to even think about the calamity that is facing not just this country but every country in the world. Of course, you know who's going to pay the highest price. It's the Global South—poor people, brown and black skinned people, people of colour. They are going to pay the price for this government's sociopathy, this government's cowardice and this government's hypocrisy.

Thankfully, we've been able to take a small step by fixing Labor's mistake in this legislation which would have potentially frozen or significantly disincentivised investment into renewable energy and made our current predicament worse.

I want to be very clear about one aspect of our current predicament: Australia is not going to reach our 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030. That is abundantly clear. The sooner the government admits that the better. The percentage of renewables in our grid, just like the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, does not buy political spin. Political spin does not matter to thermodynamics.

Do you want to know what the scariest graph in human history is? The scariest graph in human history is the atmospheric CO2 level graph. I'll tell you why that's the scariest graph in human history. It's because it's a dead straight line heading for the heavens. We haven't even slowed down the rate of growth in our atmospheric CO2 and CO2-equivalent levels. Despite all the COPs, all the agreements, all the political spin and all the investment in renewable energy, we're not even slowing down the rate of growth of carbon in our atmosphere. Thermodynamics does not care whether we agree to do things or we disagree to do things. It doesn't care what our percentage of renewables is. It doesn't care about anything except the levels of CO2 and CO2-equivalent gases in our atmosphere. That is what is driving climate catastrophe, and that is the scariest graph in human history.

We can't even slow down the rate of growth. Decades after Kyoto, the atmospheric CO2 levels are heading in a dead straight line upwards—1.5 degrees is gone. I suspect two degrees either is gone or will shortly be gone. The Gulf Stream is collapsing. There's a record El Nino coming. People are dying in their droves. Tragically, we ain't seen nothing yet, Collins. We ain't seen nothing yet.

When the history is written about this time, the people who facilitated the destruction of our ecosystems, our climate systems and our natural systems will be portrayed in the same way as some of the great villains of human history—because that's what you are. You are some of the great villains of human history. History will not be kind to you, and it should not be kind to you because you are the facilitators of death, misery, war and famine. You are complicit in the looming deaths of billions of people. It won't make anyone feel better that history judges you in that way, but you should all know that that is exactly how you will be judged.

It's a pleasure to make a contribution on this very important piece of legislation. Even though it's a little esoteric and inaccessible to many, many people, this is an example of the kind of legislation that is necessary by governments that want to make sure that systems are in place to manage the quality of what's happening in our financial sector and in the economy. This particular matter before us for consideration is the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026.

I see we've got a few people from the Australian public who are here in the parliament. Perhaps it's the first time they've been—welcome, if it's the case—and perhaps others have been before and have acquired a taste for the strange things we do here on your behalf. A lot of what we do seems incredibly inaccessible. When I say that title, people go, 'Well, what's all that about?' I will put on the record some of the context of why this stuff actually matters.

Senator Scarr, you have a role with me on the Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. I'm sure the Australian people will be very grateful for the hard effort of that unified committee, and I acknowledge also in the chamber, soon to make a contribution, my colleague from the Greens party. The Liberal and National parties, the Labor Party and the Greens party have been working in shock and horror and with a collective, values based response to making sure that our financial markets work in the interests of ordinary people.

There are bad people out there who want to take your money from you, and there are bad people out there who will act unethically and will rip off people left, right and centre. Some of them are very highly skilled. Some of them even have very highly vaunted qualifications, like the term 'accountant' or the special brand of the accountancy part of that environment which is auditors. I'm sure that some of you here today and some who might be listening anywhere around Australia will have heard about the shameful behaviours of a couple of the big auditing companies in this country. They actually operate all around the world. It's like a franchise model, but it's not McDonald's. They don't say, 'Would you like fries with that?' but they certainly say, 'Would you like to pay more for that?' They cost us an awful lot of money to provide the services that they need to provide.

Auditors are like superspecialist doctors. You have to open your whole company. Registered companies have to be wholly open so that people can go in and have a look and see what's going on, and they need to tell the truth.

Two of the big ones are PwC and KPMG—there are another two: EY and Deloitte—but lot of the work of my colleagues here in the chamber and on our committee, which I'm honoured to chair, has focused on those two particular ones. The reason this legislation has come about is due to the work of senators working together to flush out what was going on in these very powerful and highly resourced entities that had a veil of secrecy.

In PwC's case, there was a tax leaks matter. You might have heard about it. Essentially a very, very smart person in the tax division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC Australia, was invited by the then Treasurer, Mr Hockey, to come and help create great laws so that international companies would pay their fair share of tax in Australia so the burden didn't fall just to hardworking Australian taxpayers. His name is Peter-John Collins. Instead of keeping that confidential, though he did sign a non-disclosure agreement—a secrecy document; he wasn't supposed to share that information—he took it back to PwC, promptly wrote it up and sent it to six jurisdictions around the world and said, 'Hey, guess what? I've got a product that can make us a lot of money.' Basically, he didn't care that it was going to cost the Australian taxpayer.

That's the kind of behaviour of people who act unethically, jettison their professional responsibilities, fail to acknowledge the damage that they do when they misuse the intellectual powers and the professional skills that they have and use them, in that case, against the country to hurt every Australian taxpayer. We need to do something about these problems. The Treasurer, Mr Chalmers—I'm sure there'll be many headlines around these people and what they do, and the leaders of these parties, but the real grunt work is actually changing things like the legislation that's coming in here.

The fine now for doing what Peter-John Collins of PwC did is multiplied by a factor of 100, so we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of fines to stop that kind of behaviour. Today we're not talking about quite the same thing. But what we saw with that PwC matter were the limitations of the current regulatory settings for tax practitioners and the broader system in which they operate. We know that there could be dodgy people. I mean, I'm a very law-abiding citizen, but I have to say that sometimes, if I'm in a car, I could be distracted and might be inclined to speed a little bit, so a reminder that the police might catch me is a very important thing in containing my behaviour.

Who are the police for tax practitioners? How do you get to be a tax practitioner? Well mostly, tax practitioners are accountants, but they've got some people working for them who've got a special name: unregistered preparers. You see all the ads come out, particularly around May and June as we're going into tax season, saying, 'Come and use my company, and I'll get you a lot of things back from the government.' But there are people out there who are claiming on behalf of Australians, who haven't got the skills and aren't doing the right thing and they're putting their clients in a bad situation. There are people, even amongst those, who are getting returns and keeping money that should be going to Australians. They're doing the wrong thing.

I'm sure that somewhere down the track somebody will call this 'red tape'. But, for me this is about protecting ordinary, hardworking, decent Australians who understand that the local roads won't get better, their schools won't get funded and they won't be able to go to hospital when they need to unless they pay a fair amount of tax—a fair amount; no more, no less—and certainly not be ripped off by the person who's providing tax advice to them.

In response to the PwC matter, the government consulted on what should happen around the policing of the tax providers, the tax agents. That is an entity called the Tax Practitioners Board. We consulted about a way to enhance what's happening with the Tax Practitioners Board, and there's a sanctions framework that needs to come in from December 2023 to 2024. Subsequently, we announced the reforms to the regime of the 2025-26 budget, as part of the enhancing tax practitioner regulation and compliance receipt measure. That very boringly named thing is part of what we're doing here today. Following the passing of these laws, you should be more confident if you go to a tax agent that what you're being told you're being offered is in accordance with the law and that there's a policeman on the beat, the Tax Practitioners Board, with the powers to really clip the kind of behaviour that is illegal and rips off ordinary Australians.

I think there are about six or seven schedules in this particular bill, but, in the first schedule, the first part of the bill—the first chapter of a book, almost, if you want to think about it in that way—is a new regulatory toolkit of skills, opportunities and surveillance mechanisms for the Tax Practitioners Board to make sure that people are doing the right thing. The first thing is a new criminal offence for unregistered preparers so they don't do the wrong thing. We've also in this piece of legislation, after consultation with the sector, increased the maximum civil penalty amount. So, instead of it being easy for somebody to do, they need to think twice—that it could cost them some money and that they will have to pay a penalty.

There will be new civil penalty provisions for breaches of the code of professional conduct by registered practitioners, and there also will be penalties for people who create false or misleading statements, even if they're unregistered preparers. You can't have somebody who's in charge with these unregistered preparers around them say, 'It wasn't me; it was just them.' Often, unregistered preparers sit around a central person who has a higher degree of qualification. That being said, there are other pretty creative and somewhat damaging individuals who just set themselves up and say, 'I'm a tax agent; I'm a tax preparer.' They might have the word 'agent' small on a sign that nobody might notice, but unsuspecting Australians go to unregistered preparers and pay.

If you're paying for something, you should be paying for the service that you think you're paying for. This is to clip the wings of those con artists who might be abusing the opportunity when they see your particular financial situation and take advantage of it. To deal with that, there will be the establishment of an infringement notice regime—'We've noted you've done the wrong thing, Mr Jones or Mrs Matthews or whatever'—and there's a notice regime that will follow to let people know.

There's another thing called enforceable voluntary undertakings, which is something I had no idea about before I came to the parliament. Deputy Chair Scarr and Senator Pocock, we've certainly seen a large number of enforceable undertakings put onto different companies and partnerships by another cop on the beat called ASIC. So the Tax Practitioners Board will be able to say: 'Okay, we've seen all of this. You're doing all this stuff wrong. We are going to enforce a certain set of practices on you. We're going to be watching you more closely. There might be fines attached. But you're going to agree that you did the wrong thing, and there will be consequences.' That's an enforceable undertaking. I guess we have to accept the fact, though, that, for whatever reason, whether it is that they are morally vacuous or, perhaps, caught in the throes of an addiction—that can be a driver of corruption, bad behaviour and exploitative behaviour—there will be contingent and interim powers to suspend registration. People can lose their registrations completely.

Another of the things I didn't know before I came to parliament was that people who are registered might have a banning period for a short period of time and can then come back. So, to make sure that there's actually a disincentive for people to do the wrong thing once caught, we have in this legislation proposed—and I hope we'll have the support of the Senate today—to extend the prohibition period for a reapplication following a termination from five years to 10 years.

They're the specific things that are being advanced in this piece of legislation before the Senate today. The reason why we think this is so important is it's going to strengthen just not just the registered practitioners but the unregistered preparers to ensure that misconduct is both identified and addressed earlier and more effectively.

The measures I'm talking about here complement a broader suite of government reforms that are about strengthening integrity and accountability across the tax system and across the professional services sector. There's a couple of other bills. An earlier reform we pushed through that has made changes to improve the powers of that tax practitioner board, that cop on the beat, is the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Bill. That was about those powers and about improving transparency within the profession.

This piece of legislation is also enacted alongside obligations under the Tax Agent Services (Code of Professional Conduct) Determination 2024. That is about lifting the standards of those professional practitioners and their behaviour, and it further aligns with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Act 2024. That one expanded the ATO's ability to target promoters of tax exploitation schemes, increased penalties and referrals of misconduct to professional bodies, and strengthened whistleblower protections. That is just schedule 1 of a bill that has to deal with matters related to tax in Australia that go to schedule 5 and maybe even to schedule 6, 7 and 8. So it's a big piece of work.

In the 40 seconds that I have remaining to me, I want to draw your attention to an options paper for which consultation has just closed. It's about the regulation of accounting, audit and consulting firms in Australia. At the beginning of my remarks I talked about how important these people are to Australia. Every person here who's a working Australian has superannuation. Your superannuation is invested in by yourself or by others. You need to make sure the people who are telling the truth about these books do the right thing, and that is our auditors, so we're working on that as well.

I rise today to talk about the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026. I will foreshadow a second reading amendment to be moved by Senator Hanson on behalf of One Nation, and I'll get to that shortly. But, firstly, I will say that, like much of what Labor proposes, in this legislation there are parts that we could support but there are definitely parts that we simply cannot support.

First, looking at schedule 1—the addition of five criminal offences for unregistered preparers, increasing the civil penalties with two additional civil penalty provisions, and allowances for the assurance infringement notices for civil penalty provisions—we have no issues with that. Schedule 2, which creates a definition of 'real property' in the ITAA 1997, retains the ordinary meaning of the commencement of this schedule. If you look through it, it's designed to broaden the tax base of foreign resident owned assets by including assets that have a close economic connection to Australia, consistent with the OECD model of taxation. The point of this, we believe, is to define real property, which previously took its ordinary meaning from the state or territory laws, which was related. Again, we have no issue with that.

But then we get to schedule 3, which is the main issue that One Nation has with this bill. This schedule allows for a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount on the sale of renewable energy projects. This was extended from 2030 to 2040 in, we believe, a deal with the Greens to push this bill through. One Nation is strongly opposed to this. It's quite fascinating that, when it comes to delivering capital gains discounts, Labor looks to strip it away from some but then deliver it wholeheartedly to their mates. One Nation will strongly oppose this, and we will propose an amendment to have this schedule removed. Ultimately, if we cannot have it removed, I do not see us being able to support this piece of legislation.

However, let's just look at the second reading amendment to be moved by Senator Hanson, which I foreshadowed. This is a motion to talk today about and bring into this legislation something else that is extremely important—a way to address the ever-rising suffering Australians are facing as a result of the poor decisions made by this bad Albanese Labor government.

We ask that the Senate note that Australians are working harder and still struggling to get ahead; that interest rates are continuing to rise; that rents are continuing to climb to new records; that groceries, power bills, petrol and insurance are taking more out of the family budget; and that superannuation is an asset that belongs to working Australians, not to the government. We are calling on the government to allow Australians paying rent or mortgages the choice to take three per cent or one-quarter of their future compulsory super contributions as a tax advantaged pay rise for up to three years to help them survive the cost-of-living crisis that has been inflicted upon them by this government.

Australians are struggling to pay for the life that they're living as a consequence of the decisions made by this government and especially as the consequence of the actions taken through its terrible budget. Rents have gone through the roof. Mortgage repayments continue to climb. Power bills are going higher and higher. Groceries are costing more and more. You go through the supermarket and pay for your groceries, and, every single time you do, there's the shock that you feel when faced with the cost of groceries. It must be so devastating for Australians to feel that. Insurances are up; rates are up. Aussie families and Aussie households are being squeezed from every direction. That is why One Nation feels that it is important that we look at how we can help people ease that suffering they are feeling now.

The government is insisting that 12 per cent of workers' wages must be diverted into superannuation and locked away for decades. But, for someone struggling to make the payments on their mortgage this month or someone whose rent has jumped by another $100 a week, money locked away ostensibly for their retirement may not be where they need every last dollar going right now, which is why One Nation will be moving this second reading amendment calling on the government to give Australians paying rent or mortgages a choice. For up to three years, they should be able to redirect three percentage points of their future superannuation contributions—one-quarter of the current 12 per cent contribution—into a tax advantaged increase in their take-home pay.

This is a temporary measure. It would apply only to future contributions and be available only to people paying rent or a mortgage. It would be opt-in; no-one would be forced to take it. People happy with the current situation can leave it exactly as is. But we believe you should have the option to help ease that suffering, if you are suffering as a result of the cost-of-living crisis inflicted upon you by this government, if you feel that an additional sum of money in your bank account could help you pay for groceries or your mortgage, help you feed your kids, or mean that perhaps you don't have to skip a meal or can afford to eat—because your mortgages have gone up because of inflation and been driven up by this government or because so much of your paycheque has been chewed up by your electricity bills that continue to go up because of the choices made by this government. We believe that this measure is fair and compassionate. To continue to allow Australians to suffer now cannot be allowed to continue.

As we said, if you want every dollar of your compulsory contribution to continue to go into super, that is exactly what would happen. If that is what you want, that's what would happen. But, if you are under pressure now, you should be able to decide whether part of your own wage would do more good in your bank account—more good for your family—or take that stress away from your mortgage. It may help. Maybe it'll help you keep the house that you want to have for your retirement. If you believe that your money would be better spent there, then we believe you should have that right. You should be able to decide whether part of your own wages would do more good there than sitting in a super fund for the next few decades. We don't believe this is a controversial idea, because this is your money.

Superannuation has become so large that this government is now talking about it in terms of national investment priorities, and we're starting to hear language which treats this superannuation pool almost as a piggy bank for the Labor government to sort of do with as they see fit. Labor, we believe, is increasingly eyeing off superannuation as though this enormous pool of money belongs to them and they have a right to decide how it should be used. But it doesn't. It's not Labor's money; it is yours, and the government needs to remember that.

Compulsory superannuation might be mandated by law, but that doesn't somehow transform a worker's money into public money. The fact that the government forces it into a particular account does not give the government ownership of it. Yet we've seen a growing interest in directing superannuation towards the government's priorities—often their energy transition priorities—and towards whatever else happens to be on the political agenda of the day.

We think that the Australian people, if they feel that feeding their families or servicing their mortgage is their priority, should be respected. We believe they should be aided and assisted in that. The purpose of superannuation is to help the person whose wages paid for it. It should never become a convenient pool of capital for government policy—as much as that might upset the Labor government. The purpose of super, at the end of the day, is to help the people whose wages paid for it. It's their money. It is not yours.

If this Labor government is planning to lecture Australians about the importance of retirement savings, they should also recognise that financial security doesn't begin at retirement. It matters today. For many, many Australians suffering through the effects of this cost-of-living crisis that's been inflicted onto them by this Labor government—higher grocery costs, higher electricity costs—financial security and the wellbeing of their families is something that matters today. Owning a home when you retire matters. Servicing that mortgage matters today. Keeping your home before you retire and avoiding high-interest debt matters. Keeping up with the rent matters. Being able to pay the electricity bill without putting groceries on a credit card or going without eating matters.

There are Australians today building up their super balance while falling behind on their mortgage. There are renters watching thousands of dollars a year go into super or borrowing money simply to cover basic living expenses. There are families paying credit card interest rates because they don't have enough cash flow, while compulsory super contributions continue to be deducted from their wages.

You can't look at that situation and pretend retirement saving exists in isolation from the rest of someone's financial life. If a person loses their home because they couldn't keep up with repayments, that will have an enormous effect on their retirement. They build up tens of thousands of dollars in high-interest debts. That affects their fundamental future too.

So we believe Australians should be given the choice, to assist them in dealing with those critical matters now. Again, it's opt-in, and it's only for three years, to help them weather the worst of the financial strain, the result of the cost-of-living crisis they're dealing with as a result of the decisions by this Albanese Labor government.

If an Australian spends years moving from rental to rental because they couldn't quite keep up with the cost of servicing a mortgage, that matters too. There's no point pretending a person is financially secure simply because one column on their super statement is going up.

What this amendment recognises is that people's circumstances are different. Take someone earning $80,000 a year. Three per cent of that income is $2,400. For someone earning $100,000, it's $3,000. For a couple earning $80,000 each, the amount involved could be $4,800 a year before the proposed tax treatment is taken into account. Over three years, it means thousands of dollars staying in that household budget. For mortgage holders, that money would help absorb higher repayments. For a renter, it would cover a rent increase. For a young family, it could mean keeping food on the table and electricity and insurance bills off the credit card.

And, because we are proposing a tax advantaged treatment, the idea is that people would actually receive meaningful relief in their take-home pay rather than simply having that redirected amount swallowed up through the ordinary marginal tax system. The principle is simple: if the government is going to force workers to defer part of their wages for retirement then, during a serious cost-of-living crisis, there should be some flexibility for people facing genuine housing costs. It's a pressure valve. It's desperately needed. I mean, the Albanese Labor government has spent years talking about cost-of-living relief. They've talked about rebates, subsidies, payments and schemes and temporary measures of every description, and all of those involved government collecting money, designing a program and then deciding who gets some of it back.

This proposal works differently. It lets Australians keep more of their own money in the first place—no new spending program required, no new grant scheme, no application process where Canberra decides whether you qualify for some special form of relief. It would be the worker's decision to make a choice about what to do with their own money. If they need the money now, they can take part of the future compulsory contribution as a higher take home pay. If they don't need it, they leave their super exactly where it is. That is what choice looks like. We're allowing workers to use their money where they feel they need it.

Now, I suspect this is where Labor will struggle with the idea because, to us, it appears Labor's instinct is always that government knows best, and increasingly government wants a say in how the enormous superannuation pool of money is invested. We think we should have a more sensible discussion than that, and that is why this proposal does not touch existing balances. It doesn't create an open-ended access. It's not going to do some of the things that we've heard the Treasurer say today, using alarmist, hyperbolic language. It simply recognises that, during a period of severe housing and cost-of-living pressure, some Australians would benefit from having more control over part of their future wages. We believe that's a very reasonable proposition. If someone wants to keep that contribution at the full 12 per cent, they can. If someone needs breathing room, they should have that option too. Let the worker keep a little more of what they earn if they wish. Superannuation is not your piggy bank; it is their money. It's your money.

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026. I'll be speaking in particular to schedule 1, which solely relates to reforms to the Tax Practitioners Board. The Greens support the strengthening of the Tax Practitioners Board and stronger penalties for tax adviser misconduct. We recognise the good work of many people in the TPB. The PwC scandal would not have surfaced if not for the diligence and the determination of the TPB, in particular, Mr Michael O'Neill, who was tenacious in his tracking down and bringing into the public view a range of scandals and their concealment. The TPB was crucial in acting against former PwC partner Peter-John Collins for his rotten and dishonest behaviour. Mr Collins monetised confidential government information to help some of the world's biggest multinational companies avoid tax, earning at least $2.5 million in revenue for PwC as a result.

At its core, the PwC tax leaks scandal was not a story about one individual behaving badly. It exposed the ability of a powerful consulting firm to gain access to confidential government information about future tax policy and then use that information to profit its multinational clients. It's a story about greed. It's about a business model where greed, deception and corruption trump ethics and decent behaviour at every turn.

This is one of the most egregious breaches of public trust in recent memory but it's far from the latest or only scandal in this sector. As I said in my additional comments to the first consulting inquiry's report in 2024, the scandals in this sector are frequent. They are global in nature and many never see the light of day, so I want to acknowledge again the journalists who have worked very hard over recent years to uncover sin after sin within the rotten consulting sector and the big four, as well as the whistleblowers, without whom these scandals would never have come to the attention of our two consulting inquiries. I want to acknowledge the contributions of Senator O'Neill, Senator Scarr and Senator Colbeck to the two consulting inquiries. They worked together to bring to the attention of the parliament and the public the nature of the litany of disasters—conflicts of interest, appalling governance, ethical failures, state capture and regulatory weakness—that have unfolded across the larger consulting sector and parts of the public institutions that deal with it.

The ongoing KPMG scandal is a story about not one mistake or one individual exercising poor judgement but a laundry list of people and repeated instances of unethical governance and accountability failures, years of cover-ups and aggressive resistance to telling the truth. KPMG's sins are multiple in our most recent experience. Senior partners have been misusing confidential client information to win extremely lucrative audit work. We've seen breaches of audit independence and multiple instances of cheating on internal exams. We've seen examples of lying to the Senate about the firm not power mapping to really expand their footprint within the public sector they're consulting in, when in fact they did and continue to do that practice. We've seen them overcharging Defence while raking in billions of dollars. We've seen mistreatment and harassment of multiple whistleblowers, including Brendan Lyon of the TAHE matter in New South Wales and the more recent experience of a brave new whistleblower and other whistleblowers who are making contact with senators regularly, queuing up to bring forward new and other disasters, both in KPMG and across the big four. We've seen people attempting to use legal professional privilege to obstruct and slow the work of this parliament and regulators. We've seen failure to notify corporate clients and the Department of Finance of recent developments and incidents, as required by contractual obligations. The list is long, and it goes on.

While we welcome measures like these in this bill to strengthen our regulators, we know we need bigger and bolder structural reform.

Schedule 1 of this bill will give the TPB a greater range of options when responding to tax adviser misconduct. These sanctions are really important. We know that, despite being a frontline regulator, the TPB does not currently have the same powers and regulatory tools as other regulators like ASIC. The independent James review commenced by the former Liberal government in 2019 found that the TPB could only apply relatively minor sanctions, such as written cautions, or high-level sanctions, such as suspension, termination of registration or civil penalties. What's missing is a proportionate range of tools in between, which this schedule fixes.

The bill introduces new criminal and civil penalties and gives the TPB the power to issue infringement notices and accept enforceable undertakings. It also increases the amounts of existing penalties and introduces interim suspension measures for egregious breaches. It extends the prohibition period from five years to 10 years following the termination of registration for misconduct.

The Greens support these measures because deterrence really matters. If a consulting firm can make millions—indeed billions—of dollars from misusing confidential government information while facing only a relatively small regulatory penalty, then the penalty is no deterrent; it's the cost of doing business. These changes also have wide support from stakeholders. There's broad consensus that the TPB needs stronger enforcement powers. CPA Australia have said that this is a balanced approach that strengthens confidence in the tax system while protecting ethical practitioners. They said it would have little impact on those who are ethical and compliant. The TPB has said that, following the passage of legislation, they will undertake further consultation on guidelines and administrative policies.

Many of these recommendations came from the independent James review of the TPB and the Tax Agent Services Act, but this report made its recommendations six years ago. The report predates the PwC and the KPMG scandals. It's taken a long time to get to this point where we are today, and there is still a lot more to do. Here we are legislating some of the basic tools that a modern regulator should have possessed in the first instance.

We support increasing the penalties available where people deliberately undermine the integrity of our tax system, but the job doesn't stop there. We know the TPB is an important regulator, and these are welcome changes, but it's nowhere near enough to address the core problem here. These reforms are a step forward, but they are modest in their scope and size in response to multiple mass scandals that expose something much bigger, a fundamental problem with corporate power, regulatory capacity and accountability in Australia, especially in relation to the big four. Australians were outraged by the PwC and the KPMG scandals, and they expect parliamentarians in this place to take it seriously, and we are.

It's good to see that the government is considering options to reform the accounting, audit and consulting sectors and that they've brought forward an options paper, but this options paper was largely written before the most recent KPMG scandal, and it narrowly focuses on audit, leaving the broader issues for the big four around their multidisciplinary, very broad based activities outside it. Hopefully we don't spend too much longer trying to get action on those issues and the broad range of services, behaviours and business models of the big four. We need to see faster action.

PwC and KPMG scandals have united the parliament, and two major inquiries have made multiple clear recommendations for reform. Reform needs to be driven by the public interest, not by what's easiest or acceptable by the big four in terms of accommodating change. The big four have lost their social licence in Australia, and the government should be using this as an opportunity to make ambitious structural change. The big four have shown Australians who they are and the main forces that create their business model. Last Friday, ASIC told the joint corporations committee, which Senator O'Neill chairs, that they have identified 551 internal complaints about audit and related misconduct at the big four firms over the last three years. There is a lot of water to flow under the bridge as these internal complaints, 500 of them across the big four, are investigated for what they did, what they mean and who they have affected. This is an astonishing number. What will they reveal as they are closed down and investigated? How many more scandals do we need before we see real action by Labor to limit and control the broad scope of big four activities?

The big four dominate our economy. They are the parents of privatisation. They have driven so much change in our institutions, our health system, our education system, our universities and the way our public sector works, yet they have much weaker transparency and accountability than big corporations. It is time to end their special treatment. Australia needs a strong, independent and trusted audit assurance and professional services sector. We know that self-regulation has failed and that the big four cannot be trusted, so we need to do a few things in my view.

Firstly, we need to end the licence of self-regulation for the big four. We need to have a similar regulatory body on the beat for audit just like the TPB. Secondly, we need to separate the conflicts that are inherent in running a business that does audit, tax and consulting for individual clients. There is too much farming opportunity for business, which is unethical and compromises the integrity of audit. Thirdly, we need to renovate the governance of these large corporations. At present they have a bunch of cosplay 'directors' who they term independent but in fact, as we have recently seen in KPMG, are not actually pushing for independence of governance in any way. We need public disclosure requirements, we need a strong whistleblower obligations, and we need the same taxation obligations for the big four as large corporations in our country face. We need to see real consequences for audit misconduct, and we need to make sure we look after whistleblowers across the big four. Finally, we need to make sure that they have the same insurance and liability responsibilities as other players in the field and that there's a level playing field in relation to insurance for liabilities.

Finally, there's a lot to do in the field of consulting. We need to regulate consultants, we need to debar those who practise poorly or breach guidelines and protocols, we need to target a fall in consulting by federal government, we need to ban political donations, and we need to do something about the revolving door which sees politicians go so profitably from inside this chamber to outside, advising very, very significant contracts, not least in Defence. We need to remove the special treatment of partnerships in this country. How much evidence does this parliament need, does the Labor government need, to take real steps which make a difference and break the model of agreed lack of transparency that we see in the big four? The big four are critical to auditing the largest companies in our country yet are not subject to the same transparency, reporting, tax and whistleblowing obligations as those big corporations. So the question for me now is: having assembled, and in continuing to assemble, the evidence, what will this parliament do, what will this government do, to meet the incredible outrage across our Australian community, to reel in the big four, to regulate them, to root out their destructive and very, very costly impact on our public services?

The Greens support the measures in this schedule. We've previously supported reforms to the TPB, and we secured an amendment to the previous bill that banned partners from the big four firms from sitting on the board. This is very, very important, but we all continue to push the government to go further. We want to protect those whistleblowers. We need a comprehensive response to the consulting sector's failures rather than a series of narrowly targeted legislative amendments that leave the underlying concentration of power in these very large partnerships. These reforms are a good step forward. They close some gaps by increasing penalties and increasing accountability. But it does not guarantee that another scandal cannot happen. It doesn't guarantee that, and how many of these scandals are we going to have to put up with before we see action?

We need to see transparency, we need to see strong regulators and independent oversight of these places, these partnerships, and, above all, what we need to see is the political courage to stand up to these very powerful vested interests, who are present at every table of influence around our country and, too often, in our parliament. The lessons of the PwC and KPMG scandals are that we can't stop here. We need a tax, auditing and consulting sector that's fair, transparent and rigorously enforced. Australians want regulators that are strong enough and bold enough to take on the big end of town. It's time for Labor to act.

I rise today to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026. Specifically, I want to address the 'other measures', which is often where the government hide the measures they would rather Australians did not notice. Let me be absolutely clear: One Nation supports holding dishonest tax advisers to account. Australians have every right to expect that people who deliberately exploit the tax system, facilitate misconduct or help others avoid their tax obligations face consequences. There is nothing controversial about that, but this bill is another example of the government using an omnibus bill to bundle together different measures and bury a very different agenda within it.

That agenda is found in schedule 3, and—surprise, surprise—schedule 3 is not about dodgy tax advisers. It is about giving eligible foreign investors a special capital gains tax deal for renewable energy projects, and One Nation will not support it, because what we have here is a Labor-Greens deal that asks Australian taxpayers to subsidise the profits of foreign corporations, global investment funds and wealthy investment structures. It's a special deal for a favoured industry, and Australians deserve to know about it.

This is what schedule 3 actually does—let us strip away the bureaucratic language. Schedule 3 provides eligible foreign investors with a 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax when they dispose of certain, qualifying renewable energy assets in Australia. That can include major renewable energy infrastructure, such as wind, solar, battery and hydro projects. These are not backyard projects; we are talking about large-scale commercial investments involving substantial amounts of capital, land and infrastructure, and the government wants to make the tax treatment of those investments more generous.

Let us be clear about who benefits. This is not primarily a tax break for an Australian family trying to get ahead. It's not a tax break for a local farmer or a small Australian business. It's a tax concession specifically designed to encourage investment in large renewable energy assets, including investment by foreign interests. An Australian investor selling an ordinary asset remains subject to the applicable tax rules, but an eligible foreign investor selling a qualifying renewable asset can receive a 50 per cent CGT discount. This is a remarkable proposition! At a time when the government is changing capital gains tax arrangements affecting ordinary Australians, it is creating a special concession for eligible foreign investors in renewable energy. So I ask the government why a 50 per cent CGT discount is too generous for Australians but appropriate for foreign investors in renewable energy. That is the question Labor needs to answer.

Labor tells Australians that the tax system needs reform, Labor tells Australians that the capital gains tax needs to be treated differently, Labor tells us that difficult decisions have to be made to repair the budget and Labor tells us that foreign investors should pay their fair share of tax on Australian assets. Those principles may sound reasonable, but schedule 3 undermines them, because schedule 3 gives selected foreign investors a substantial tax concession when they realise capital gains from qualifying renewable energy assets. Labor is tightening the rules in some areas while simultaneously creating a special concession in another. It is one set of rules for everyone else and another set of rules for the renewable energy industry. That is not tax neutrality, that is not consistency and that is certainly not fairness.

The government tells Australians that revenue is tight. It tells us the budget needs repair. It tells Australians that everyone has to contribute. But, when wealthy international investors and global corporations come looking for a concession in renewable energy, suddenly there is room for a special tax deal. Australians are entitled to ask: where is the fairness in that?

This is a subsidy. The government may prefer to call this an 'investment incentive', but let us call it what it actually is: a tax concession is a form of subsidy. If the government changes the rules so that an investor pays substantially less tax than it otherwise would, the government has provided an economic benefit. The Treasury receives less revenue. The investor keeps more of the capital gain. The Australian public carries the costs through forgone revenue. The money does not magically disappear. It remains with the investor rather than being collected by the Australian government. When that investor is a foreign corporation or global investment fund, we have to ask whether Australian taxpayers are getting a sufficient return for the concession they are providing.

Then, there is the political deal behind this legislation. The original proposal was supposed to end in 2030. The Greens demanded more, and Labor gave in. The concession has now been extended to 2040. That is not a short transitional arrangement; that is 14 years of preferential treatment to eligible renewable energy investors. And that tells Australians something important about how the Labor government and Greens arrangement works. The Greens like to present themselves as opponents of big business. They talk about corporate power and wealth inequality. But, when it comes to large renewable energy projects, suddenly they are advocating for the interests of the global capital. They want more projects built faster with more investment, and they are prepared to support special tax treatment to make it happen.

At the same time, these projects can require enormous amounts of land, transmission, infrastructure and government support. Regional Australians are often the people who have to live with the consequences—more transmission lines, more infrastructure, more industrial-scale development, more pressure on land use, more disruption to regional communities—yet the financial returns can ultimately flow to large corporations, international investors and investment funds. That is the contradiction.

Who carries the risk? The government wants Australians to believe these projects are private investment, but increasingly the public is being asked to carry more and more of the risk. Government subsidies, government backed schemes, government contracts, government funded infrastructure, government mandates and now preferential tax treatment—at what point does the taxpayer stop being the taxpayer and become the venture capitalist?

If the project succeeds, the private investor receives a return. But, if the government has guaranteed the conditions around that investment, the Australian public carries much of the risk. That is not the free market; that is government intervention dressed up as private investment. If renewable energy is competitive, let it compete.

Let me be clear: One Nation is not saying renewable energy should be banned. If a company believes that a wind farm is profitable, it should build it, but not if the community doesn't want it. If a company believes that a solar project is profitable, it should build it, but not on our valuable farmland. If a company believes that a battery project is profitable, it should build it, but not where there is a risk of fire. But let the investors take the risk. If the project succeeds, they receive the reward. If it fails, they bear the loss. That is how investment is supposed to work.

What we should not do is manipulate the tax system to guarantee that a particular class of investment receives preferential treatment. If renewable energy is genuinely competitive, it should not need a special CGT deal. Where is the promised benefit? This is the question that is almost never asked. What does Australia actually get in return? We are told that these projects represent billions of dollars of investment. Fine, but investment alone is not the objective. The objective should be economic benefit. Do electricity prices fall? Does reliability improve? Does productivity increase? Do Australian manufacturers become more competitive? Do households become better off? Does the taxpayer receive a return greater than the cost of the subsidy? Those are the questions that matter, because spending billions of dollars does not automatically make Australia billions of dollars richer.

Schedule 3 is therefore not just a tax provision; it is part of a much larger policy direction. Labor has committed Australia to net zero. That commitment requires enormous changes to our energy system, which in turn requires enormous amounts of investment, and government increasingly has to intervene to make that transition happen: subsidies, targets, mandates, investment schemes, infrastructure and tax concessions. It becomes a cycle: the government sets an expensive target, the target requires expensive investment, the investment requires government support, and taxpayers are asked to pay. We should stop that cycle, scrap net zero and leave the Paris Agreement.

Scrapping the net zero target does not mean abandoning environmental responsibility or refusing to invest in innovation. It means refusing to cripple Australian households and industry in pursuit of a political target regardless of the cost. Energy policy should focus on what Australians actually need: affordable energy, reliable energy and secure energy. If a technology delivers those things, let it compete. If it does not, taxpayers should not be forced to prop it up.

Australia should also withdraw from the Paris Agreement. We should be able to determine our own energy policy based on Australian circumstances and choose technology based on cost, reliability and security. We should be free to change direction when policies fail, rather than allowing international communities to become a permanent justification for increasing costs for Australian households and businesses.

This brings us back to schedule 3. The fundamental issue is fairness. The government is changing the CGT arrangements that apply to Australians, yet it is proposing a special 50 per cent CGT concession for eligible renewable energy investors. This is not some temporary measure lasting a year or two. After pressure from the Greens, the concession has been extended to 2040. That should concern every Australian taxpayer. If the government believes that tax concessions are necessary to encourage investment, it should be able to demonstrate exactly what Australians receive in return. If the project is commercially viable, why does it need the concession? If it is not commercially viable, why are taxpayers being asked to make it viable? And if foreign investors are already willing to invest billions in Australian renewable energy, why should they receive a special tax advantage when they eventually sell? These questions have not been adequately answered.

This bill may be presented as a bill about tax adviser misconduct. One Nation supports holding dishonest tax advisers to account. But Australians should look beyond the bill's title. Look at schedule 3 because schedule 3 is where Labor's real agenda becomes clear—a 50 per cent CGT discount for eligible foreign investors in renewable energy assets, a special tax treatment for an industry already receiving substantial government support, a concession extended to 2040 following the Labor-Greens deal and a policy that risks leaving Australian taxpayers carrying the cost while foreign corporations and global investment funds receive the benefit. At the same time, Labor is changing the CGT arrangements applying to ordinary Australians. So again I ask: why is 50 per cent too generous for hardworking Australians but appropriate for foreign renewable energy investors? That is the question Labor must answer.

One Nation believes the rules should be fair, the tax system should be predictable, investors should take their own risks, businesses should compete on their merits and Australian taxpayers should not be forced to subsidise investments simply because the government has decided those investments fit its preferred energy policy. We should reject schedule 3, we should stop using the tax system to pick energy winners, we should end the endless cycle of subsidies and mandates, we should scrap net zero, we should withdraw from the Paris Agreement and we should allow every form of energy technology to compete on a level playing field.

If renewable energy can deliver cheaper, reliable and secure electricity, let it prove it in the marketplace. If it can, it will succeed. But, if it needs subsidies, mandates, government backed schemes, taxpayer funded infrastructure and a special 50 per cent capital gains tax concession to make the investment attractive, Australians are entitled to ask: where is the gain for us? The Australian taxpayer should not be the investor of last resort, the Australian electricity consumer should not be the customer of last resort and Australian families should not be expected to pay more so that foreign investors can receive a better tax deal.

One Nation will not support that. Australians deserve better, and Australia deserves an energy policy built around affordability, reliability, security and economic growth, not subsidies, special tax deals and political targets.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026 is being sold as legislation to strengthen accountability for tax adviser misconduct and hides a poison pill that will hurt everyday Australians. One Nation supports holding dishonest tax advisers to account. I'll say that again. One Nation wholeheartedly supports holding dishonest tax advisers to account. Australians have every right to expect that people who exploit the tax system face consequences. Sadly, though, this is another Labor-Greens omnibus bill. Labor has bundled together unrelated measures and buried a very different agenda in schedule 3.

Schedule 3 is not about dodgy tax advisers; it is about giving foreign investors a special capital gains tax deal for so-called renewable energy projects like solar and wind—parasitic projects. This is more Labor-Greens deceit, waste and hypocrisy. It is a Labor-Greens deal asking Australian taxpayers to subsidise the profits of foreign corporations, global investment funds and billionaire backed trust structures. One Nation will oppose that measure.

So what does schedule 3 do? Schedule 3 gives eligible foreign investors a 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax when they sell certain renewable solar and wind energy assets in Australia. It applies to assets including wind turbines, solar factories, battery projects, hydro projects and related renewable energy infrastructure.

Let us be clear about who benefits. This is not a tax break for an Australian family trying to get ahead. It is not a tax break for a local farmer. It is not a tax break for a small Australian business. It is a tax break targeted to advantage foreign companies and foreign trust structures—foreign!—and an Australian investor selling an asset pays the ordinary tax rate for capital gains. Under this bill, a foreign corporation selling a qualifying renewable energy asset can get a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount—half! This is a better deal for foreign interests than it is for Australians—a much better deal.

Labor says it wants foreign investors to pay their fair share of tax in Australia. Deceit! You don't want that; your actions show otherwise. The Treasurer has repeatedly argued that foreign investors should not be able to avoid taxes on Australian assets, yet schedule 3 does exactly that. It gives a selected group of foreign investors a generous discount when they cash out of solar and wind energy assets. Labor is tightening rules for foreign investors generally while creating a special escape hatch for foreign renewable energy investors—solar and wind. It is one rule for everyone else and another rule for the so-called energy industry—the parasitic solar and wind industry—because it cannot survive without subsidies and favours and because, without these, possible investors are walking away from investing in parasitic solar and wind projects. They're already walking away.

The Albanese government is telling Australians that revenue is tight, the budget needs repair and difficult decisions must be made. Yet, when wealthy solar and wind energy investors come knocking, Labor finds hundreds of millions of dollars for a special deal. Consider the Greens's deal. The original proposal was supposed to end in 2030. The Greens demanded more. As usual, Labor gave in. The concession has now been extended to 2040—another 10 years of parasitic behaviour on Australian taxpayers. This is not a short transition period; this is a 14-year tax entitlement thieving from taxpayers. It shows exactly how the Labor-Greens arrangement works. The Greens posture as opponents of big business and defenders of ordinary Australians, everyday Australians. Yet, when it comes to wind factories, solar factories and battery projects, they become the advocates for global investment funds. They want the projects built faster. They want more land cleared. They want more transmission lines pushed through regional communities and native bush. And now they want foreign investors to receive a tax break when they sell out. Australians should ask why Labor and the Greens are so determined to protect the profits of foreign solar and wind investors—parasites.

The cost to taxpayers is huge. The original concession was estimated to cost taxpayers $425 million over the forward estimates. That was before Labor extended the policy another decade. The government has not properly explained what the extended concession will cost. They're not accountable to the Australian people, they think. Australians deserve to know how much revenue is being handed away to foreigners. Every dollar lost through this tax break is a dollar that cannot be spent on hospitals, aged care, roads, regional services, policing, defence, cost-of-living relief or infrastructure for future projects. Labor tells Australians, 'There's no money,' but there is always money when the beneficiaries are big solar and wind projects and foreign investment funds and trusts.

This is not responsible economic management. It is not honest economic management. It is corporate welfare. It is handing foreigners a gift. Regional Australia pays the price. The renewable energy projects, solar and wind, that this concession covers are not abstract figures on a Treasury spreadsheet; they are projects being imposed on regional communities with government might. They are wind turbines across productive farmland. They are solar factories swallowing up agricultural land. They are thousands of kilometres of transmission lines cutting through farms, bushlands and communities—28,000 kilometres. They are projects that divide neighbours, create uncertainty and place enormous pressure on local roads, services and infrastructure.

Regional Australians are told they must carry the burden for the national interest. They are told to accept the towers, the access roads, the clearing, the noise, the visual impact, the health impact, the mental health impact, the smashing of the environment, the smashing of community. They are told their concerns are simply the price of the transition, yet the people carrying that burden are not receiving special tax deals. The tax deal goes to the foreign corporation that owns the project. The profit can be sent offshore and is being sent offshore. The community is left with the disruption, the division, the disorder. That is the real Labor-Greens deal, the real Labor-Greens model. Local communities carry the costs and the burdens while foreign investors collect the tax concession.

There's no guarantee for Australians. There is nothing in schedule 3 that guarantees lower power prices. There is nothing that guarantees reliable power. There is nothing that guarantees Australian ownership of projects. There is nothing that guarantees local manufacturing. There is nothing that guarantees jobs for local workers. There is nothing that guarantees compensation for host communities. There is nothing that guarantees agricultural land will be protected. There is nothing that guarantees native habitat will be protected. There is nothing that says the tax break must be passed on to Australian families already struggling with electricity bills.

Labor and the Greens are asking Australians to give foreign investors a 50 per cent discount without demanding any real return for the country, to cut it in half—stealing from the Australian taxpayers. If the government wants to subsidise an industry, it should at least be able to explain what Australians get in return. On this measure, the answer is clear: foreign investors get the benefit while Australians get the bill. Australians get the burden.

The government claims this measure will attract investment. Yet the tax concession is triggered when an investor disposes of an asset. It rewards selling. It rewards cashing out. It rewards the transfer of Australian solar and wind assets from one investor to another. It does not guarantee the construction of a single new project. It does not require a single additional megawatt of reliable power. It does not guarantee one lower power bill for an Australian household—none. If Labor wants to make the case for investment, it should address the real barriers: planning failures, grid constraints, connection delays, community opposition from poor consultation, lack of reliable transmission and uncertainty created by governments making policy on the run. These are facts. Instead, Labor has chosen the easy option: give a tax break to foreign investors, call it 'energy policy' and wipe your hands of it.

One Nation supports genuine accountability for tax advisers who break the law, mislead clients or abuse the system. We do not support hiding a foreign investor tax concession inside a bill about tax adviser misconduct, and we will not support that provision. These measures should have been separated and put to the people honestly, not deceitfully. The Senate should be allowed to vote clearly on tax adviser accountability. We support that. The Senate should be allowed to vote clearly on whether foreign investors in solar and wind energy deserve a special capital gains tax discount—making the parasites even fatter. Labor has bundled the measures together because it knows schedule 3 cannot stand on its own, and the Greens support that.

If this was such a good policy, the government would proudly put it in a separate bill. It would tell Australians exactly what this provision costs. It would explain why foreign corporations deserve a better tax deal than Australians do. It would explain why regional communities should accept industrial-scale renewable solar and wind projects while the profits and tax concessions go offshore—money being transferred from the Australian taxpayer to foreigners. But Labor can't do that, because this deal is not defensible. It cannot explain itself.

Australians are doing it very, very tough. In every major provincial city in Queensland—Cairns, Townsville, Bowen, Whitsundays, Proserpine, Mackay, Rocky, Gladstone, Maryborough, the North Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, Brisbane itself, Ipswich, Beaudesert, Boonah—there are homeless people sleeping in cars. There are whole families sleeping in cars. There are good working families sleeping in cars, sleeping under bridges, sleeping in tents and sleeping in caravans. Since 1996, families and small businesses have been paying more for groceries, mortgages, rent, insurance and electricity due to Uniparty Liberal and Labor policies based on climate fraud.

Small businesses are struggling with power bills needlessly. Farmers and regional communities are being asked to absorb the consequences of Labor's reckless solar and wind rollout needlessly. Yet Labor and Greens have found room in the budget for a tax break for foreign renewable energy investors—inexcusable. Australians pay full freight, as always. Foreign funds get half-price capital gains tax—inexcusable. Regional communities get the wind factories, the solar factories, the transmission lines and big batteries. Offshore investors get the profits—not the definite profits but the conjured profits, through parasitic subsidies and tax breaks.

One Nation says enough. We've had enough. The Australian people have had enough. This has been going on since 1996. We support accountability. We support fair taxation. We support Australian ownership and Australian jobs. We do not support taxpayer funded concessions for foreign billionaires and global investment funds. One Nation opposes Labor-Greens deceit, waste and hypocrisy. That hypocrisy, deceit and waste carry over from them both pushing net zero and the Paris Agreement—as do the Liberal-National coalition. Dishonesty, deceit, waste, hypocrisy—One Nation opposes schedule 3. We make that very clear.

I'd like to thank senators for their contributions to the debate. Schedule 1 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026 amends the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 to include a new and expanded regulatory sanction toolkit for the Tax Practitioners Board to respond to misconduct in the tax profession and by unregistered preparers, including poor and unlawful tax advice, in a timely way. The schedule introduces new criminal offences for unregistered preparers, new civil penalty provisions and increased maximum civil penalty amounts and new powers that enable the Tax Practitioners Board to issue infringement notice penalties, enter into enforceable voluntary undertakings, impose contingent and interim suspensions of registration and impose an extended maximum duration of terminations of registration of 10 years.

The amendments improve protections for taxpayers by driving better behaviour, addressing and deterring misconduct and maintaining community confidence in the integrity of the tax system. These changes form part of the government's response to the PwC tax leaks matter and implement recommendations from the 2019Independent review of the Tax Practitioners Board.

Schedule 2 to the bill amends the tax law to strengthen the foreign resident capital gains tax regime. It ensures Australia can tax foreign residents on direct and indirect sales of assets with a close economic connection to Australian land more in line with the tax treatment that already applies to Australian companies. It will also improve compliance with the existing foreign resident CGT withholding rules and increase the Australian Taxation Office's oversight of transactions where a foreign resident self-assesses that they do not have a taxable interest in Australian real property. This supports the integrity and sustainability of the tax system and was informed by extensive engagement with stakeholders.

Schedule 3 to the bill amends the tax law to provide a transitional 50 per cent CGT discount for foreign investors on the disposal of eligible renewable energy assets until 30 June 2040. This reflects the importance of foreign investment for Australia's electricity transition while ensuring the tax treatment of these assets aligns with the treatment of other assets in the longer term. The 2040 timeline acknowledges that renewable infrastructure assets can have a long construction and development phase. Schedules 2 and 3 implement the government 2024-25 budget measure and will commence prospectively on the first quarter after royal assent.

Schedule 4 to the bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to deliver refinements to support a faster, more transparent and risk based merger regime. The government has heard from businesses, advisers and regulators about how to fine tune that regime. First, the amendments adjust the legal consequences where parties have not notified the regulator, the ACCC, when they should have by making such acquisitions voidable instead of automatically void. This minimises unintended consequences, especially for innocent third parties, where the existing voiding provisions would otherwise automatically unwind. The amendments still preserve the incentive for parties to notify when appropriate.

Second, the amendments introduce a mechanism for merger parties to seek extensions from the ACCC for the period in which they can put an approved acquisition into effect. The extension can be up to six months and may apply where there are reasonable delays in putting an acquisition into effect. Multiple extensions may be granted. This will also apply to transactions already approved in the 12 months prior to the commencement of the bill.

Third, the amendments better target when an acquisition needs to be notified. Acquisitions that are unlikely to result in a practical ability to influence competition will not need to be notified as originally intended. This will benefit venture capital investing in startups.

Combined, these amendments improve regulatory certainty and reduce unnecessary compliance burden. They also achieve the regime's original key objectives of a faster, more transparent and risk based regime that promotes competition and supports economic activity.

Schedule 5 to the bill amends the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the Productivity Commission Act 1998 to give legal force to the current national competition principles and regulatory structures. The measure substitutes references to the 1995 National Competition Policy agreements with references to the 2024 Intergovernmental Agreement on National Competition Policy, the NCP agreement, and introduces definitions of 'public interest test' and 'competitive neutrality arrangements'. To futureproof these amendments, the measure also introduces power for the minister to specify any new agreement to be the NCP agreement and new arrangements to be the competitive neutrality arrangements.

Schedule 6 to the bill amends the tax law to specifically list the Ross House Trust, Tanarra Social Purpose Ltd and i4Give Foundation Ltd as deductible gift recipients and extends the existing listings of the Australian Academy of Law and Cambridge Australia Scholarships Ltd.

Schedule 7 to the bill implements a recommendation of the Productivity Commission's philanthropy inquiry by changing the name 'ancillary funds' to 'giving funds'. The new name better reflects the central role that these philanthropic funds play in supporting charities.

Schedule 8 to the bill makes minor and technical amendments to the tax law to give effect to the Australian Taxation Office's current administrative treatment to ensure that tax credits arising from amounts withheld from the disposal of Australian real property can be claimed in an assessment for the same income year that the disposal is recognised for tax purposes.

On that basis, I commend the bill to the Senate.

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Canavan be agreed to.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) Australians are working harder and still struggling to get ahead,

(ii) interest rates continue to rise,

(iii) rents continue to climb to new records,

(iv) groceries, power bills, petrol and insurance are taking more out of the family budget, and

(v) superannuation is an asset that belongs to working Australians, not the government; and

(b) calls on the Government to allow Australians paying rent or a mortgage the choice to access their own money and take 3%, or one quarter, of their future compulsory super contributions as a tax-advantaged pay rise for up to three years to help with the cost of living crisis".

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Bell be agreed to.

The question now is that the second reading of the bill be agreed to.