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

The bill should not be postponed. Parliament should debate the matter which is before the House for the reasons that were set out in minister's second reading speech. I've got to say that, when the minister came into this place and introduced a bill which is going to address the problem of multinational tax avoidance, I did not doubt for a moment that he was genuine. But I did doubt his commitment, because this government has form on avoiding bills that deal with multinational tax avoidance.

We all remember their great announcements in the last budget. We were going to address this $13 billion problem of multinational tax avoidance, and I want you to remember that number—$13 billion worth of tax avoidance. That's the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme budget. That's what we're talking about. That's what we're putting off—the amount of money equivalent to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme budget. They told us that they were going to set up a task force—'We're going to have a task force to drill down into the issue and chase down the $13 billion worth of multinational tax avoidance.' It sounds good. It sounds very good. It sounds like something that every member in this House would, I'm sure, get behind. But a few weeks ago we learnt—like so much that this bloke from the marketing department puts out—that there was no task force; the task force didn't exist. It was all spin and marketing from the champion of spin and marketing. And we see it again today: a bill brought before the House that is going to deal with a $13 billion problem.

There are a lot of members in the House at the moment. When I looked across the chamber, I thought, 'This is good; we're going to get a speech from each and every one of them about how committed they are to addressing the scourge of multinational tax avoidance—$13 billion worth every year—and the things that they could put their money towards in their electorates.' I'd have been very interested to hear those speeches. I wondered why all of these members were in the House, and I was certain that they were here to talk about multinational tax avoidance. But, instead of that, they're all lined up to shut down debate. What is it that they're going to put ahead of this in the parliamentary agenda? I'm sure they don't even know the answer to that. They are here to once again gag debate, as they have done time and time again this week.

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