Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to provide a few brief remarks on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2015 Measures No. 1) Bill 2015, which makes various amendments to taxation and superannuation laws. The Assistant Treasurer and subsequent speakers have comprehensively canvassed the contents of the bill, so I will not do so in detail on this occasion. Briefly, the bill abolishes Labor's failed first home saver account scheme. It abolishes the dependent spouse tax offset, which has outlived its usefulness and has been substantively replaced by the dependent (invalid and carer) tax offset. Changes are made to tax law concerning offshore banking units. The Global Infrastructure Hub announced as part of Australia's G20 presidency is to be made tax exempt, and various other tax law changes of a technical nature are made.

However, I particularly wish to focus on schedule 5 of the bill, which relates to tax deductible gift recipient extensions. Schedule 5 extends the specific listing of two entities as deductible gift recipients, or DGRs—namely, the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project and the National Boer War Memorial Association. This will require an amendment to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to update the list of specifically listed deductible gift recipients. The listing will be extended to 1 January 2018. Consequential amendments will also be made to extend the automatic repeal date of the deductible gift recipient listings. The listings will now be automatically repealed on 1 July 2022.

The Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project Incorporated and the National Boer War Memorial Association Incorporated are seeking donations to build memorials on Anzac Parade in Canberra. The extension of the deductible gift register listing of these organisations was announced by the Treasurer in the 2015-16 budget. In introducing this bill, the minister made mention of the fact that both the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project and the National Boer War Memorial Association have fallen short of their fundraising targets. He explained that the extension of their deductible gift recipient status will help these organisations attract public financial support for their activities, as taxpayers can claim an income tax deduction for certain gifts to deductible gift recipients. Income tax law allows tax deductions for taxpayers who make gifts of $2 or more to deductible gift recipients. The financial impact of the amendments contained in schedule 5 will be $1.4 million over the forward estimates.

The fundraising efforts by the National Boer War Memorial Association for a memorial in Canberra are an issue that is particularly close to my heart. My great-uncle, Major Edmund Righetti, served in Victoria's first contingent to go to the Boer War in 1899. He was severely wounded but recovered and returned to South Africa to serve again. His revolver from that time is in the collection of the Australian War Memorial. More than 16,000 Australians served in the Boer War, and more than 500 Australian soldiers lost their lives in the conflict. I should declare here that I am a founding member of the National Boer War Memorial Association. In 2013 I received a petition, delivered on horseback at the front of Parliament House, of more than 10,200 signatures, calling on the then federal government to support a national Boer War memorial on Anzac Parade. It was a petition that I was honoured to receive and a cause that I wholeheartedly support. The Boer War marks the birth of the Australian Defence Force and the emergence of a new nation after Federation. Unfortunately there is currently no national memorial in the capital to honour the soldiers, nurses and trackers of this conflict, who were the first to fight under the Australian flag.

The site for the memorial was selected in 2006. A design competition was conducted in 2013, the winning design being a spectacular scene depicting four larger-than-life-size mounted troopers in action, to be erected in bronze. The first of the statues has been completed and, as of April, was in the process of being shipped to Canberra. A total of $1.8 million has been raised to date, with organisers hoping to raise an additional $2.7 million in time to complete the memorial by Boer War Day, 31 May, in 2017. At this point I would like to acknowledge Miles Farmer and Queensland Committee Chairman Ron McElwaine from the Sherwood/Indooroopilly RSL sub-branch for their ongoing fundraising efforts towards this very worthy project.

The cost to the budget of extending the deductible gift recipient status of the National Boer War Memorial Association will be minimal—less than $1 million over the forward estimates. But what it says about the commitment of the Australian government to the memory of those men who lost their lives in the Boer War conflict is so much greater. As a nation we need to remember those who came before us and those who died fighting in our name. The way Australians have come together this year to commemorate the Centenary of ANZAC is testament to our willingness to remember. This bill, in its own small way, allows us to better preserve the memory of the fallen in the Boer War as well as Australians who have died in peacekeeping missions abroad. I commend this bill to the House.

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