Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, could I say that I do not accept the premise of the honourable member’s question that the government ignored, deflected and denied—quite the contrary. The government have acted very swiftly to deal with any issues that have arisen as unintended consequences out of this measure and have indicated that we would recalibrate the measure to meet the policy objectives set out on budget night, which are to ensure the integrity of the tax system and also to ensure a positive return to revenue.

I would contrast this today, as I have contrasted this previously, to a similar matter under the previous government, where the previous government and Assistant Treasurer Dutton made a decision to deal with tax evasion in relation to script-for-script takeovers. That measure had the outcome of completely closing takeovers in this nation. My predecessor absolutely refused to acknowledge that there was an issue. He completely refused to acknowledge that mistakes had been made and left it for the incoming Rudd government to fix, and we fixed it. Full marks to the previous Assistant Treasurer: he was doing the right thing in tackling tax evasion. My criticism of him is that he did not recognise that the issue had unintended consequences.

Coming to the honourable member’s question about whether it was my decision, I would simply say, as I heard the finance minister say just a little while ago, that of course ministers do not comment on internal budgetary processes. This was a decision of the government, which I support.

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