Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the principles of the Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 4) Bill 2020. Schedule 1 clarifies the operation of the income tax law in relation to the renewable energy target, ensuring that generators are not taxed when they later rectify a failure to meet a target in a given year. Schedule 2 allows for the smooth transition of disputes from the existing Superannuation Complaints Tribunal to the new Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Schedule 3 allows for increased penalties to be applied to breaches of industry codes prescribed by the Competition and Consumer Act. Increasing penalties for breaches of the franchising code was expressly recommended by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

Labor supports franchisees being protected by industry codes as recommended. But we don't consider that the scale of the penalties set out in the schedule aligns with the findings of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. To that effect, we will move amendments to the bill to increase the maximum allowable penalties for corporations that breach the franchising code and other industry codes prescribed by the ACCC. Schedule 4 allows for the extension of certain arrangements for meetings and documents which were put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We've seen 17 inquiries into the franchising sector in Australia over the past 30 years. The problems in the sector are well known. Yet this government has failed to take action to help protect small businesses from large corporations. In the most recent parliamentary inquiry, the franchising sector was described as having 'manifestly failed to deter systemic poor conduct and exploitative behaviour' and having 'entrenched the power imbalance'.

We saw the despicable treatment of Holden car dealers across our nation when General Motors decided that they were exiting the Australian market. We all know why General Motors exited the Australian market. It was because there was no plan by the Morrison government to support an automotive industry in this country. They abandoned automotive industries—car making in Australia. As a result, in a situation where those larger international auto makers walked out of this country, those people—many of them mum-and-dad small businesses where people had mortgaged their homes to take out loans for their businesses to become franchises of Holden—were left in the lurch.

And there was no requirement for General Motors to negotiate with those Holden dealers. I remember sitting in meetings down here in Canberra with those dealers, who had come to tell us how poorly they'd been treated by the General Motors head office in the United States. General Motors left their Holden franchisees with a paltry offer of $2½ thousand per car and expected dealers to change their business models completely. There was no negotiation. This government didn't make sure there was negotiation, because they'd ignored the previous recommendations of all of those inquiries about franchising in this country. Once again we see that what the Morrison government says about supporting small businesses and what they actually do are worlds apart.

There are some really good franchisees out there, but there are too many like GM that are big, powerful players who put in place terrible contracts with unconscionable terms. The Morrison government has done nothing over the past three terms. That's eight long years, while hundreds of families have gone to the wall on their watch. Only the Morrison government would allow big companies to profit and dominate in an unconscionable manner, with unfair contracts, in this franchise space. Be it in 7-Eleven or one of the many other businesses throughout the country, we've seen small businesses treated appallingly by big multinationals because the protections weren't in place for collective bargaining and for a fairer deal for franchisees.

When in comes to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession that ensued, many big companies have been able to profit from the government's JobKeeper scheme and pay bonuses whilst cutting off vital support for small businesses and workers who actually need it to survive. We all know that the JobKeeper cuts will mean more uncertainty and anxiety for Australian small businesses already doing it tough.

I want to mention one area in particular where franchisees are quite common, and a business area where businesses are going to struggle dramatically when JobKeeper ends, and that is the Australian travel agents and tourism business sector. The COVID-19 Consumer Travel Support Program that was put in place by the government completely misses the mark and perfectly highlights this government's inability to consult with small businesses and their operators about the support that's needed to make sure that they get through this COVID pandemic. Because of the way those businesses operate, many of them keep trust accounts with funds in those on behalf of the clients that they are managing, there's a discrepancy with the notion of turnover. Many of those businesses have failed to meet the requirements for eligibility for the consumer travel support scheme. So with JobKeeper ending at the end of this month many of those businesses are unable to trade as they would have pre COVID, because of government regulation that closes our borders and prohibits international arrivals and all of the associated travel that goes with that.

These businesses in the travel agents industry and the tourism industry are being left in the lurch by this government. One of those operators said to me recently, 'What's the point in almost getting us through this recession and the difficulties associated with COVID-19? What's the point in getting us three-quarters of the way through only to allow us to fail at the final hurdle?' Their view is that once JobKeeper ends this month because their revenues can't be restored due to government regulation those businesses will end as well. Most of them are small businesses. The employment of many of those employees that work for them will end as well. That is the outcome that this Morrison government is going to deliver to many of those operators in the travel agents and travel business sector. It's simply not good enough. These businesses, these small business operators, deserve the support of this government to help them get through this pandemic.

That is why Labor is calling on the government to look at targeted support, particularly for the travel industry, in the form of some form of JobKeeper or wage subsidy, to allow those businesses to continue to get through, hopefully only until the end of this year, so that they can maintain their businesses and keep people employed. That is the moral and the just thing for this government to do for those businesses in the travel agents and tourism industry.

Of course, we know that not all sectors and industries have shared in the recovery. The great disappointment about the government's JobKeeper scheme is that there are many large Australian corporations that have profited from JobKeeper. They didn't need to. I'm speaking of businesses like Harvey Norman and Premier Investments which have turned profits. I don't know how they qualified for JobKeeper when they turned a profit, given that the eligibility criteria was that you had to demonstrate a downturn in your revenue of 30 per cent. Nonetheless, Harvey Norman had half yearly profit of half a billion dollars. What do they do with it? Well, they return it to shareholders as a dividend, subsidised by the $22 million that they pocketed from the Australian taxpayer. Yet this government is going to allow travel and tourism operators to go to the wall. A big business like Harvey Norman or Premier Investments is going to be able to pocket that JobKeeper that they didn't need without having to return it to the Australian taxpayer. That stinks, that is wrong and that is not a government that supports small business at all.

That is why Labor is calling on this government to look at extending that payment. They should be making those bigger companies that have profited from JobKeeper return those taxpayer funds that they didn't need. But even if they don't do that, they should still be looking at providing support for small businesses who, by virtue of government regulation, can't trade properly in this COVID environment, particularly in the travel agents and tourism sector, to ensure that they can get through this pandemic, and that is what Labor is calling on the government to do.

See this speech in context