Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

After listening to this debate, I have to wonder about the opposition’s tactics and the reason they have waited for two weeks. They have waited some two weeks since the budget to bring this matter before us today. Let us face it; they cannot say anything about the CPRS. They cannot say anything about schools; all the ones who want money for their schools are walking out of the room at the moment. They are not going to talk about black spot funding, or, in Wilson’s case, level crossings up in his electorate. They are not going to talk about roads or support of local government. So what do they want to talk about? They want to talk about tax schemes. Comrade Smith wants to talk about workers’ rights, but if he were genuine about workers’ rights this bloke would not have voted for Work Choices on however many occasions—was it six or seven times they voted for Work Choices?—to strip away workers’ rights. Let us make no bones about that.

What we are trying to do is set up taxation arrangements so that under these schemes people are called upon to pay their fair share of tax. That is spreading the burden across all those who work. If you look at employee share ownership schemes, you will see that only one in 20 workers at the moment are in one of those schemes. But that does not mean that we do not need to review it.

The opposition are now picking on an issue some two weeks after the budget. It has certainly been covered in the newspapers over the last two weeks, but they waited. In addition, we are in a situation where the Assistant Treasurer has already put in train a consultation process with all the stakeholders to address these issues. We are not going to compromise on people paying their fair share of tax. What we are going to do, however, is look at what is fair, with a view to providing a positive set of arrangements that will encourage employee share ownership. I have worked for organisations that have sponsored such schemes over many, many years. I think it does encourage loyalty and participation and provides motivation when employees share in the company’s profits. Those things are all true.

Not once have those opposite indicated what the ATO have said so far, that it is the people at the higher end of the schemes who are involved in tax abuse or the confusion that has caused this amount of tax losses. What the ATO is saying at the moment is that in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue have likely been squandered as a consequence of these schemes. I would have thought it was in the interest of everyone in this chamber and of the people they represent in their electorates to ensure that we protect the integrity of our tax base. Surely we should not simply go about our business, allowing the highest income earners a means to defer their tax increases or, alternatively, to pay half of what they would have been required to pay in tax by declaring it a capital gain.

That is not what we intend to do. We do intend to move to protect the integrity of the tax system and we do intend to do so in such a way that it is done in consultation with all stakeholders, the industries concerned and also the various groups out there who actually sponsor these schemes. I am sure Comrade Smith will not have been lobbied by too many unions to date, but there are those who have actually taken the time to talk to a number of the trade unions out there, such as the Australian Workers Union, and work out what they are asking for. Sure, they do want that review to take place—and we are committed to that review—but they say that the fundamentally unfair aspect of this arrangement is that the higher income earners rorted the scheme. I do not think that it is inappropriate at this stage for us to move to review that aspect of it with a view to tightening it up so people pay their fair share of tax.

I do not know about your electorates, but in my case 98 per cent of the electorate of Werriwa earn under $100,000. They are the people that I want to make sure are not disproportionately affected by tax arrangements. They need to see that we are making the effort for their benefit, to ensure that everyone is called upon to pay their fair share of tax. And, if we abide by that principle, we are in a position to protect the integrity of our tax system. Apart from the consultation process the government is entering into—

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