Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Hansard source

The records show that this activity was rampant and there were very senior people involved in that activity, as I say, up to their snorkels in it. It was Labor in opposition that helped blow the whistle on this rampant activity. I must point out too—and you would be aware of this, Mr Deputy Speaker—that the coalition managed inadvertently to blow the whistle on itself by organising the Costigan inquiry into the painters and dockers union. While we are talking about painters and dockers and all things maritime, the reality is that that inquiry found instead evidence of widespread abuse of the tax system through these various schemes.

If we wind the clock forward, we see Labor in parliament supporting the government in this case. Fortunately, the Treasurer has not been dragged kicking and screaming into authorising action through Operation Wickenby. I point out, however, that the annual report of the tax office a couple of years ago referred to the innovative establishment of a special unit directed at high-wealth individuals. To paraphrase the relevant part of the report, it said words to the effect that, unfortunately, there is no shortage of work for that unit. Labor argues, and has consistently argued, that people should pay their fair share of tax. This measure is designed to go some distance towards ensuring that people do pay their fair share of tax. Therefore, Labor supports the amendment in this bill.

The government has indicated that it is committing $300 million to Operation Wickenby over seven years. The budget measures in the 2006-07 budget increased revenue as a result of the operation. It has been estimated that the increased revenue could be $323 million over four years. If you do a little bit of simple arithmetic that might not seem to be a huge return on the investment that is going in. But when we evaluate anti-avoidance and anti-evasion activity on the part of the tax office we see that it is about not just the direct return but the signal that it sends to tax dodgers around the country that the tax office is vigilant and will run them to ground and bring them to account. So there is a much bigger second dividend through the overall impact on compliance with the income tax laws of this country.

I will note that compliance levels overall, according to the tax office, are pretty high, but where they are not it undermines the integrity of the tax system. It sends out a message: if some people are avoiding tax, why should honest taxpayers pay their fair share when very wealthy people do not? Therefore, these sorts of measures, even if they do not produce what seems to be a huge rate of return directly, are nevertheless well and truly worth while.

The second set of provisions in this legislation address the prohibition in the current law on the disclosure of information about the progress of any action taken by any person in relation to the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act. That is a way of saying that at present the tax office is prevented from providing information to employees on the progress of their superannuation guarantee complaints. The amendments will allow the tax office to give information to an employee in response to the employee’s complaint that his or her employer has not complied with the employer superannuation guarantee obligations. This is a common-sense amendment. Of course, if an employee feels aggrieved and feels that his or her employer is not doing the right thing in providing the superannuation guarantee payments to which he or she is entitled then a complaint obviously can be made. But, under current laws, the tax office is prohibited from advising the employee of the progress of that complaint. It can become a bit of a black hole. So this will shine a light into the black hole and allow the employee to at least be apprised of the progress of the assessment of that complaint.

Supporting this particular provision gives me the opportunity to support the superannuation system in this country more generally—a superannuation system for which the coalition has been claiming credit lately. It is as if nothing ever happened before 1996. I recall, as do so many Australians, that a very significant change occurred in Australia in the late eighties and the 1990s, under the previous Labor government and under the direction of Paul Keating, firstly as Treasurer and then as Prime Minister. That, of course, was the introduction of the superannuation guarantee.

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