Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will confine my comments to the financial services industry. As I said at the outset, I am talking about the competitiveness of the financial services industry, and the funds management industry is part of that.

We have seen a complete lack of ability from the government to put our funds management industry and the financial services industry on an even footing with our competitors and a complete short-sightedness in giving our financial services sector an even break. This legislation is a small step, which we support wholeheartedly, but the government should be doing much more to put Australia’s financial services industry on an even break. This is not about picking winners or supporting the financial services industry at the expense of others; it is about removing impediments and getting out of the way. One of those impediments is an uncompetitive tax regime. This bill goes a small way to fixing that, but there is still so much more to do.

We have had a short-sighted approach from this government in relation to the tax regime that applies to the funds management industry and the financial services industry in particular. We heard that the government’s costings for these changes have completely blown out of the water. We heard Treasury tell the parliament through the Senate that the cost of changes would be $100 million—completely blown out of the water by the evidence presented to the Senate committee.

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