Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No. 1) Bill 2015. As the Assistant Treasurer in his second reading speech mentioned, schedule 1 of this bill abolishes the first home saver account scheme. Schedule 2 of the bill abolishes the dependent spouse tax offset with effect from 1 July, as announced in the budget. Schedule 3 to this bill amends the taxation law to modernise and improve the integrity of the offshore banking unit regime. Schedule 4 adds the Global Infrastructure Hub to the list of named income-tax-exempt entities in division 50 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. Schedule 6 makes a number of amendments across the tax and superannuation law to provide certainty for taxpayers. Schedule 7 amends the income tax laws to implement the final stage of the investment manager regime.

But, like the member for Ryan, my particular focus is on schedule 5, which extends the specific listings of two entities—the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project and the National Boer War Memorial Association—as deductible gift recipients for a further three years. We have just recently celebrated Boer War Day, which commemorates the first war in which Australia fought as a nation and the first war in which we fought alongside New Zealanders. The 31st of May is the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the South African War in 1902. Services were held this year in both Hobart and Launceston, at the very beautiful memorials in the Domain in Hobart and in the City Park in Launceston.

This amendment bill will be of particular interest to many people in my electorate of Lyons because of a section deep in the bill which honours the memory of those Tasmanians who have served so bravely both in war and on peacekeeping missions for their country. I am pleased that one of the things that we are debating today is the proposal to extend the specific listings of the two entities I mentioned as deductible gift recipients for a further three years. This is a most worthy inclusion for Tasmanians and their fellow Australians from the colonies, as they were at the time, who fought so long ago during the Boer War and for those who served much more recently in Australia's peacekeeping missions.

Five Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery during the Boer War, including two Tasmanians, Trooper John Hutton Bisdee and Lieutenant Guy Wylly. Trooper Bisdee also has the distinction of being the first Australian born soldier to be awarded a Victoria Cross. The conflict which became known as the Boer War, or the Second Boer War, involved two independent Boer republics in South Africa, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal Republic, who saw British interests in South Africa as a threat to their independence. The discovery of gold and diamonds in the Boer Republics in the 1880s intensified rivalry and British imperial ambition. Boer independence resulted in fiction, which in 1899 provoked the Boers to attack in order to forestall what they saw as an impending British conquest.

As part of the British Empire, the Australian colonies offered troops for the war in South Africa. At least 12,000 Australians and New Zealanders served in contingents raised by the six colonies, and then, after Federation in 1901, the new Australian Commonwealth. About one-third of the men enlisted twice, and many more joined British or South African colonial units. At least 600 Australians died in the war, about half from disease and half in the course of action.

My home state of Tasmania, which has always punched above its weight in terms of serving its nation, contributed four contingents of soldiers, totalling 558 men, to serve in the South African War. Twenty-two Tasmanians died during the war, with 11 being killed in battle or dying of their wounds and another 11 dying from diseases contracted in the conditions under which they served. Soldiers from Tasmanian contingents were also awarded Distinguished Service Orders and five Distinguished Conduct Medals for services performed during the Boer War, and another three were made Companions of the Order of the Bath.

As I mentioned before, two Tasmanians were awarded the Victoria Cross. Trooper John Hutton Bisdee was a trooper in the 1st Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen unit. He was born on 28 September 1869, at Hutton Park, Melton Mowbray, in Southern Tasmania, in my electorate. He was a student at the Hutchins School in Hobart and worked on his father's farm after finishing school, before enlisting for service in South Africa in April 1900. He saw action in both the Orange Free State and the Transvaal before he was wounded and forced to return home. But he returned to South Africa in March 1901 as a lieutenant with the 2nd Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen.

On 1 September 1900, a group of eight Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen, including Bisdee, formed an advance scouting party on horseback under the command of fellow Tasmanian, Lieutenant Guy Wylly. Bisdee became the first Australian-born soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in the following incident. It was reported that Bisdee and other members of an advance scouting party were ambushed by Boers in a rocky defile. Six of the party of eight were hit, including two officers, Major Brooke and Lieutenant Wylly. Brooke's horse had bolted, so Bisdee dismounted, put the officer on his own horse and, despite being seriously wounded himself, ran alongside, mounted behind him and withdrew under heavy fire.

Bisdee continued to serve in South Africa until the end of the Boer War. He returned to Hutton Park in Tasmania to resume farming and to marry Georgina Theodosia Hale. In 1906, Bisdee returned to service when he joined the 12th (Tasmanian Mounted Infantry) Australian Light Horse Regiment, and by 1910 had risen to the rank of captain, then becoming commanding officer in the 26th Light Horse. He is also the second cousin to the current mayor of the Southern Midlands, Mayor Tony Bisdee.

Guy Wylly was born in February 1880. He was the son of an Indian Army major and spent part of his childhood in India before his family moved Tasmania, settling in Sandy Bay. Like Bisdee, he was a student at the Hutchins School, but he completed his final years at St Peter's College in Adelaide before returning to Tasmania. He joined the 1st Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen in 1900 and on 26 April left for South Africa as a lieutenant. On 1 September 1900, Wylly was part of the same advance scouting party as Bisdee and was awarded the Victoria Cross for the following action. Wylly was one of two officers present at the same action as John Bisdee. Wylly, himself wounded, saw that one of his men, Corporal Brown, was badly wounded in the leg and was dismounted. Wylly, despite his own wound, went to his aid, giving his horse to Brown and, at the risk of being cut off, opened fire from behind some rocks to cover the retreat of the others in the party. Our Tasmanians, as usual, were valiant in action so long ago, and we are indeed proud of them.

As I mentioned before, I am pleased to say that this bill we are debating today, the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No. 1) Bill 2015, honours the memory of those Tasmanians and their fellow Australian soldiers who fought so bravely in the Boer War. Schedule 5 of the bill extends the specific listings of the deductible gift recipients for a further three years. Both of these memorial projects have fallen short of their fundraising targets, so the extension of their deductible gift recipient status will help these organisations attract public financial support for their activities because taxpayers will be able to claim a tax deduction for certain gifts to deductible gift recipients such as the ones we are discussing today. This is entirely appropriate so close in time to the commemoration events held recently around Australia over the past couple of weekends to mark the end of the Boer War, on 31 May 1902.

It will also help those working on the National Peacekeeping Memorial Project, such as Phil Pyke from my electorate of Lyons and the beautiful town of Lachlan. Phil is now heavily involved in Tasmania's flourishing fruit and berry industry, but the former policeman also served as an Australian in United Nations peacekeeping operations. He told me that this year will be the 68th year of Australia's enduring mission to support the United Nations peacekeeping operations. Australia has been actively and continually involved in peace operations for all those years, although our military and police contributions have increased significantly in the past decade.

In 1947, four Australian ADF officers were the world's first ever peacekeepers when deployed to the Dutch East Indies, under the UN Commission for Indonesia. In the past few years, a proposal has been developed for a peacekeeping memorial to be built in the nation's capital, Canberra, to honour all those who have served and will serve on peacekeeping opportunities. These include officers from the Australian Defence Force, the federal, state and territory police forces and government agencies who have served and died on peacekeeping operations commanded or authorised by the United Nations or sanctioned by the Australian government.

Australia's enduring mission in peacekeeping has not been widely recognised, and so the memorial project has not attracted the necessary corporate funding to complete the project. Retaining the deductible gift recipient status for the Australian Taxation Office, which this bill allows, will allow the memorial committee to continue fundraising—and that is welcomed by Phil Pyke. Once completed, the memorial will be a reminder of the hard work undertaken by more than 66,000 Australians on more than 70 United Nations peacekeeping missions in troubled areas such as Rwanda, Cambodia, the Middle East, Mozambique, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan.

I commend the bill to the House.

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