Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I see the member for Kennedy is agreeing with me on this point at least. He would know about this. I'm sure there are thousands of small businesses, tradies and creditors in his electorate who have been impacted by this. We know the cost to the economy as a whole is about $5 billion per annum. The cost to small businesses and the cost to creditors is about $3 billion per annum. That is a small business each and every year going to the wall because of the unconscionable phoenixing behaviour of dodgy directors who, time and time and time again, blow their company up, move on down the road and get a slightly different name and a new ABN—maybe it's the same director number or maybe they put their dog down as the director of the new company; that's possible. And the government persists in doing nothing.

When we saw legislation addressing the Black Economy Taskforce on the forward Notice Paper, we had some hope that they were actually going to do something about this, but it was hope forlorn. They've actually pulled from the agenda this week the legislation purporting to deal with phoenixing. We have to ask why. Why has the government, after having received and sat on the Black Economy Taskforce report for so long, abandoned all hope for those small businesses being left high and dry by dodgy directors and by this government, which can't manage its business and can't manage the legislation before the House? It is now the case that we will have to wait until at least next year before we get some feeble legislation from this government to address the problem of phoenixing in this country. We'll have months of delays, months of unpaid bills to creditors and months of small businesses going to the wall because the government has taken no action against these dodgy developers. If we are going to have legislation before the House which deals with the implementation of the recommendations of the Black Economy Taskforce, let's deal with all of the problems, not just pick at one by one. Let's deal with all of the problems and let's ensure that we provide some relief to those small businesses that are being driven to the wall. If only the government and the hapless Assistant Treasurer could manage their business, perhaps get a bit more influence inside their show, we'd have some proper legislation before this House to deal with this issue.

We did learn last night in Senate estimates that they are introducing director identification numbers—which, of course, is the real key in this; every Australian has a tax file number. The real key to ensure we crack down on dodgy developers and illegal phoenixing is putting in place a system of director identification numbers. When we quizzed the government, through Senator Hume in Senate estimates last night, they admitted that this was still a priority for government, but obviously it's not a priority for the assistant minister, or it's a priority in name only. Legislation has been pulled on the matter and we are yet to see legislation in this term of government to deal with director ID numbers.

We're right to be sceptical about the bill before the House today. The community is right to have some concerns, which is why we'll be referring this matter to a Senate inquiry. We invite those members of the community who have concerns to make submissions to that Senate inquiry to ensure that all of those concerns can be adequately dealt with.

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