Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise this evening to talk to the Tax Laws Amendment (2006 Measures No. 2) Bill 2006. This is a fairly technical bill containing a number of amendments to various acts with respect to taxation. In that regard, I do not intend to go into much detail on many components of it. Suffice it to say that among the various elements contained within this effectively cognate bill are changes to compulsory acquisitions, what is an extension to the scope of what is considered to be a compulsory acquisition for the purposes of capital gains tax roll-over and changes to the depreciating assets balancing adjustment offset. Similarly, there are changes to amend the Income Tax Assessment Act to update the lists of deductible gift recipients, DGR status being one of the primary limbs through which government is able to assist organisations to attract public support for their activities.

Additionally, there are changes to the franking deficit tax so as to limit the circumstances in which the franking deficit tax offset is reduced. Another element to the bill is changes to the way in which capital gains tax treatment of options is taken into account. The measure broadly reinstates the position under the ITAA in relation to the capital gains tax treatment of options exercised on or after 27 May 2005. The other thing I would like to quickly touch upon is the variety of technical amendments, general improvements and minor corrections to the taxation laws to ensure they operate as intended.

There are a number of technical aspects to the bill that I do not intend to go into much detail on—I will leave that to the minister or the Assistant Treasurer to make comments on—but there are two elements of the bill before the House today that I would like to touch upon. Last Friday I had the pleasure of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs visiting my electorate and, in particular, hosting a roundtable in my electorate office. It is a roundtable that I convene with a number of ESOs, ex-service organisations, and a number of people who have served this country very proudly and have been willing to do so through the defence forces.

One element of this law which does have application to the roundtable that I convened of members of my very large veteran community on the Gold Coast is that part that provides for a tax exemption for F111 deseal and reseal ex-gratia lump sum payments. Effectively, this ensures that ex-gratia lump sum payments made to certain F111 aircraft maintenance personnel by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs are exempt from income tax so that those who receive this ex-gratia payment will receive the full benefit of the payment. The payment that is available to eligible personnel is in the amount of either $10,000 or $40,000. It takes into account, without admitting liability on the Commonwealth’s behalf, that there were people who were working in adverse circumstances when it came to the reseal and deseal of F111 aircraft, and so this payment was being made in recognition of the difficulties that those eligible personnel suffered in the environment in which they worked. It is very good that we are making this change. It is in accordance with the government’s intention and will and is another step that this government is taking to ensure that our veterans have made available to them one of the best repatriation systems that exist in the world today.

The other limb of this bill that I would like to touch upon is the changes that are being made with respect to choice of superannuation fund. This bill ensures that there is clarification that employers that are constitutional corporations and are making superannuation contributions for employees in accordance with state law do not have to contribute to the funds specified in state law if an employee has chosen an alternative fund after 1 July 2006. This, of course, is in strict adherence with this government’s policy of providing as much choice as possible to employees. Choice of superannuation has been a key plank of this government’s superannuation policy and I am very pleased to see that we are making these changes so that there are no more opportunities available to certain employers to utilise state laws so as to not have to provide choice of superannuation to their employees. This bill will ensure that those employees now also enjoy the opportunities that flow to them under choice of super laws. This is important in an area like the Gold Coast, which has the highest per capita percentage of small businesses in the country—the small business capital, as I call it. In this regard, I am pleased that this will be made available to various employees on the Gold Coast. I commend the bill to the chamber.

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