Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

Or Tasmania, says the member for Franklin from the table. I'm not going to hold my breath for more common sense because I am sceptical. It has taken a very long time to get to the point where we have legislation that is workable for the innovation ecosystem, that is workable for early-stage high-growth start-ups. It has taken a very long time to get to the point where we come here and say: 'Well done, government. Finally, you've got your act together. You've finally listened to us. You've finally listened to the sector. You've listened to Labor. You've listened pretty much everyone in the world, except for yourselves, who knew that this was a great big giant problem!' In fact, as I said earlier, the government knew it was a problem and did it anyway. Credit where it's due! Two thumbs up! It is quite a delight to acknowledge the common sense of the Turnbull government, finally, in bringing this legislation before the House.

This speech is not all about me saying I told you so. It's not all about a vindication of our earlier stated position. It's not all about placing on record that we had called for this much earlier. It's also a genuine acknowledgement that this legislation will help early-stage high-growth start-ups raise the capital that they need that is crucial for them to be able to grow and create jobs and create products and services that will help Australians and Australia. It is a very good thing that equity crowdfunding will now be available to those organisations—in particular, it is good that it will be available to them without having to change from being proprietary companies into limited companies. Accordingly, I am very happy to stand up and support this legislation from the Turnbull government. In so doing, it is of course deeply important to acknowledge that this legislation would be unlikely to be happening at all if it were not for the work of the shadow minister at the table, the member for Chifley, and the work of Labor in government seeking to obtain advice from CAMAC in respect of crowdsourced equity funding.

It was not just our view that the previous legislation was unworkable. It was not just the view acknowledged by the government, when they were moving the legislation, that it was unworkable. We had start-up founders criticising it at the time. One founder said, 'Switching to a public company to avail ourselves of the potential wider investable base is unthinkable.' Of course it was unthinkable; the additional compliance costs and obligations outweighed the potential benefits of the previous version of this legislation. In this new version, proprietary companies will be able to crowdsource equity fund and still meet the obligation of a proprietary company not to have more than 50 shareholders—because those who obtain shares through crowdsourced equity funding will not be counted towards that cap. People using this new regime will, nonetheless, have slightly higher compliance obligations than ordinary proprietary limited companies. It is important that those companies will be able to use this legislation.

The member for Chifley has moved an amendment seeking that the commencement of this legislation be brought forward by three months. The sector should not have to wait another six months. They have been waiting a very long time already as a consequence of this government's failure to get the bill right in the first place. I would encourage all members of this House to support the second reading amendment with a view to calling on the government to bring forward the operation of this regime by three months. I know that the sector would welcome that and I know that the entire innovation ecosystem would welcome that. There is no reason why a competent government couldn't bring this forward and allow it to commence operating in a more timely manner, particularly given how much time has already been spent by the government on this and how much time the sector has already been forced to wait as a consequence of the dilatory conduct and delay of this unfortunate Turnbull government.

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