Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

The message has to be made loud and clear: if you want a fair society then multinational companies have to pay tax and if you want a strong economy then multinational companies have to pay tax. It sticks in the craw of many hardworking Australians when they pay their tax. They go to work week in and week out, they pay their tax week in and week out and they are happy to make a contribution to society, but what sticks in their craw is when they learn that some of the wealthiest companies in the world and some of the biggest companies operating in Australia are not paying their fair share. Australians are a generous people and they are willing to put their hands in their pockets to pay for the schools, hospitals, roads and ports that make this a great country—a great country in which to do business, to bring up your family in and to run a small business—but what sticks in their craw is when they see that the playing field is skewed so that the biggest companies in the world with some of the largest incomes are not paying their fair share of tax. Frankly, they look at the Turnbull government and they know that the Turnbull government is not doing a good job of reining them in.

Australians reading the newspapers over the last fortnight would see that our country, with some of the biggest gas reserves in the world, is exporting its gas overseas to countries like Japan that are earning more taxation revenue through importation taxes on our gas than governments in Australia are earning on the exportation and royalties from that gas. Something is very, very wrong with our taxation system if this is allowed to occur. The government has to get serious about getting tough on multinationals and they have to do something to ensure that one in three of Australia's largest companies start paying their tax. It is a disgrace that those opposite decry government debt yet, according to the 2014-15 tax office transparency data, one-in-three large firms pay no tax at all. The people that we represent go to work every day and pay their tax and they look at this and they know that it is not fair and it is not right. Something has to change. That one-in-three includes 109 companies that paid no tax despite reporting a total income of over $1 billion. How can that be right? How can it be right that 109 companies with an income of over $1 billion are paying no tax?

We know this because we looked at the tax transparency data—tax transparency data that would not be available to the Australian people had it not been for the actions of the Australian Labor Party when in government introducing the legislation that made this data available. Of course, we did not have the support of the opposition back then in 2013. We did not have their support. There was full-throated objection from every coalition MP. Every National Party MP who now bellows from the government benches about how we have to do more to rein in this excess was standing on this side of the House arguing against our tax transparency laws. They later voted with the Greens, in the last parliament, to water down Australia's tax transparency laws, taking two-thirds of private companies out of the reporting net. They have a very, very bad track record indeed when it comes to putting in place the framework for tax transparency and when it comes to ensuring that multinational companies are paying their fair share.

Comparing the most recent figures for the tax year 2014-15 with the data for 2013-14 shows that the share of large firms paying no tax has stayed unchanged—36 per cent for both years. Under this government there has been no change. This points to the coalition's absolute and abject failure when it comes to cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. Labor led the way on tackling multinational tax avoidance under the Gillard government in the face of blanket opposition. They were not in the boat for ensuring that we could put in place proper multinational tax avoidance laws. The coalition government has had to be dragged into action.

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