Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprises Incentives No. 1) Bill 2017, and it forms part of this government's—wait for it—innovation agenda. This is what should really be talked about as the government's 'Seinfeld innovation agenda'; it is the innovation agenda you have when it is an innovation agenda about nothing. It is sort of like a Clayton's innovation agenda, you see, because, for a government that loves to come in here and talk the talk of innovation, what is it actually doing to deliver on innovation?

Let us just run through some of the things that this government likes to do when it comes to innovation. Let us start with, let's say, NBN. That sounds like a great way of bringing forth innovation in our economy: giving everyone access to high-speed broadband internet. Well it turns out that, under this government, it is anti-innovation, because instead of using some of the best technology that good taxpayer money could buy, like optical fibre to the home, what do we have? Copper. It is great to use 19th-century technology when it comes to our high-speed broadband internet. Thank you very much, government!

In fact, it is working so well that the ACCC has to come and do an inquiry. It has to get people out there testing that the speeds are actually matching what they are being sold as. That is how innovative this government is with their agenda. But then you think, 'You know what would be great? If we made sure the people of this nation, the people we want to encourage into innovative enterprise, are well educated and supported as they go through school and university.' But no. What this government has decided to do is—despite its claims and despite its promises that there would not be a dollar difference between what the previous Labor government had proposed, when it came to education, and under that new government there—come into this place and say, 'Here's our new education agenda. We're going to give an increase of funding on top of the cuts we have already delivered,' which will deliver to our schools $22 billion less than what they would have had under the plans of the previous Labor government. That is how much they like to support innovation.

And then you think, 'Where do we see that really come forward next? Universities!' Universities should be centres of innovation, but when we turn and look at the policy for universities, we see more cuts from this government. That is what they have delivered on, when it comes to innovation. Then I thought to myself, if we want to look at the innovation agenda of the Turnbull Liberal government, where would we see that innovation really thrive? Where would we see the research, the development, the looking at how we can do things in new ways to bring forward new economic growth? It is that centre of excellence that has delivered us great technology, such as wi-fi and so many other great advances, to not just our nation but the global economy: the CSIRO. And Lo and behold, the innovation agenda of the Turnbull Liberal government delivers whopping big cuts to the CSIRO, the centre of science and innovation in this nation. That is the great innovation that this government is bringing forward for our nation. It is sucking us backwards when it comes to innovation. It is an innovation policy of nothing. It is the Seinfeld innovation policy.

Meanwhile, you have to contrast that with Labor's approach, which was to bring forward a proper-functioning national broadband network that would have delivered fibre to the home, fibre to the premises, fibre to business. I had a local business come to me just the other day and tell me how they had to go and fork out themselves to deliver fibre to the premises because not only were they never going to get fibre under the NBN but also it was taking so long for the copper NBN fibre to the node to come to their street, and it was inhibiting their business. In other parts of my electorate, such as Thornleigh and Armadale, we have areas that not only are having to wait for NBN but also are so far away from the exchange they cannot get ADSL. To make matters even worse, there are mobile black spots, so they cannot even get wireless internet. That is how much this government supports innovation. And then they rip $22 billion out of our education system that is supporting all our kids to really drive forward the future of the economy. I mean, what sort of innovation is that?

Then we come to—as the previous speaker was remarking—schedule 2 of this legislation, which will give taxpayers the choice to 'self-assess the effective life of certain intangible depreciating assets rather than using the statutory effective life in working out the decline in value'. If anyone is still awake after I explained what schedule 2 does, let me take you back to a little lesson that I learnt as a baby lawyer. When I was doing a thing called the articles training program one of the things they like to teach you as a lawyer—not many lawyers remember this for much longer into their career, I have to say—is a little bit about accounting, a little bit about how to read financial statements, what to look for and things you need to be aware of. One of the things that I have always kept in my head from those lessons is that, when it comes to looking at financial statements, it is really important to look at how a business is depreciating its assets, because you can hide all myriad of things in the depreciation of assets.

That is why we have some pretty strict government regulation—the law—around how we depreciate assets, particularly intangible assets. It is quite important that we do that because people like to play around with them. At the end of the day, there can be—I acknowledge—reasons that the rate of depreciation on certain assets, tangible or intangible, can differ, given the conditions and circumstances of a particular business. However, what the government have not done; what they have, in fact, completely failed to do, is explain to us here, Her Majesty's loyal opposition—hopefully not Her Majesty's for too much longer!—how much this is going to cost. How many businesses are going to make use of this? What is going to be the economic benefit of making this change? The previous speaker said this is going to unlock investment from the private sector into growing businesses that—presumably—will employ hundreds of thousands of people. But we have seen no evidence of that from the government. They have not been able to provide any briefing, any example or any evidence that it is going to do that. At the end of the day, I have this sneaking suspicion that a business invests in and create intellectual property and other intangible assets because it is good for their business. It is the thing they invented—it is how their run their enterprise. They do not do it because they might be able to get some tax advantage on the way through.

At the end of the day, the government have come forward with a piece of legislation. Schedule 1 looks great, but they have come forward with schedule 2 and said: 'We want you to agree to people being able to self-assess the depreciation on intangible assets. We can't really tell you what the effect of that is going to be, but we know it's definitely going to increase debt. We know it's going to cost the government bottom line.' Let us just think about that. Let us just reflect, when it comes to impacts on the bottom line of the budget under this government. The coalition has been in government for four years—four years way too long. In that time, they have managed to more than double the gross debt of this nation. In four short years—though they seem very long—they have more than doubled it, so that we have now gone over the half a trillion dollar mark. Mr Deputy Speaker, I just used the word 'trillion' with reference to the national gross debt. That is how bad things have got under this government. This is the government that said that there was a budget emergency—but then they come into this place with legislation where they say: 'Look, we really need to pass this tax change which is going to cost the budget bottom line, but we can't actually tell you what benefit it's going to provide to the community.'

We on this side just ask for a few simple things when it comes to giving our support for taxation legislation: 'Can you show us that it's going to be a good idea?' would be the first thing. The government has failed to deliver on that. But they dress it up as an enterprise incentive, as part of their innovation agenda—an agenda that has delivered precisely diddly squat for this nation. And that basically sums up the entirety of the agenda and the outcomes of this government.

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