Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the contribution made by the previous speaker on the elements of the bill related to the work that he undertook as our communications minister—and what a wonderful job he did in the former government in undertaking that portfolio. I acknowledge the sentiments he made just then and echo those. I'm going to take a different approach in relation to this bill.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 4) Bill 2022 is effectively a nine-schedule omnibus bill. This bill is vast in scope and for the most part is supportive of key budget initiatives of the former coalition government. The member for Bradfield did mention some of those. To this extent the bill is good. I also note the member for Hume's contribution and his noting that these Treasury laws amendment bills are typically noncontroversial. They're typically things that are brought together under in one bill and are typically things that we can support in a bipartisan way. However, at a time when the government should be delivering certainty to business, the government has stapled a number of very politically contentious measures into this bill, including billions in spending for transmission projects that have not been recommended by the energy operator, a hidden $1 billion fund for the Department of Climate Change, Energy and Water to circumvent the independent CEFC process, legislative changes that remove safeguards from investment in the CEFC and $500 million for coalition energy commitments that the new government had previously opposed.

While I note that, of course I welcome it. In the spirit of bipartisanship, of course I'm going to welcome anything that the current government wishes to copy from the previous government. But here again today, contained in this bill, we find the Labor Party caught stapling a number of items that are going to be very politically contentious. I will have more to say on those as I work my way through these schedules.

In brief, the nine schedules cover the following. Schedule 1 allows for a digital games tax offset, as the previous member spoke to. Schedule 2 tightens the definition of 'digital currency' to exclude cryptocurrency. Schedule 3 reduces record keeping associated with fringe benefits tax compliance. Schedule 4 provides a skills and training boost. Schedule 5 provides a digital capability investment boost.

Schedule 6 acts on recommendations of the banking royal commission, extending and adapting financial reporting and auditing requirements. However, the Albanese government seeks to take advantage of this opportunity by diluting transparency measures to carve out itemised contributions to trade unions—just like the IR bill and NACC Bill, which have been through this chamber already. Unfortunately, the government can't help themselves when it comes to running a protection racket for those involved in the union movement.

Schedule 7 extends DGR status to a few organisations, a list which notably includes Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, despite the ACNC previously failing to grant that organisation status as a public benevolent institution. This was an item that was noticeable in the budget papers as well, and here we see Labor's thumb on the political scale once again. It's surreptitiously providing a tax concession to an organisation which will promote the government's preference in the upcoming Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice referendum. I note the Minister for Indigenous Australians claimed, just 24 hours ago, that the Australian government would not fund either the 'yes' or the 'no' case in this referendum, and I welcome that commitment from the minister. I was pleased to see that the government won't be using taxpayers' money to fund either side of the referendum argument. I know that it's been a longstanding convention that Commonwealth governments will be even-handed when it comes to referendums and will fund the case both for and against any given referendum question.

Given the government is now legislating to enshrine the Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition as an entity that can get this DGR status, I can only assume that when another entity is potentially formed to coordinate, run and fund the 'no' case in this referendum the federal government will move legislation to enshrine that entity as a DGR-status organisation as well. I think that is only a fair, reasonable and balanced approach and, certainly, one that would be preferential to the approach taken previously, of using taxpayers' money to fund cases in a referendum question. I think that offering tax exemption status, or tax concessions, would be better for Australia's fiscal position. It would only be fair that the government take the same steps when an entity is formed that might be running the 'no' argument in that referendum.

Schedule 8 is the most contentious of all the schedules within this bill, both in terms of parliamentary process and in terms of funding good public policy. Schedule 8 effectively paves the way for Labor to enact their Rewiring the Nation proposal, a policy that anticipates a cost of $20 billion. I think $20 billion is a cost that will certainly blow out over time. Despite the huge cost—which will be, of course, all borrowed money—the proposal comes with a predictable Labor murkiness, because there is no mention of the projects that would benefit from this funding. The schedule also removes the requirement for government to legislate additional CFC funding. This would allow the government to routinely create additional accounts within the CFC via general appropriation acts. By doing so, this schedule effectively circumvents the appropriate oversight and parliamentary scrutiny of this new funding, and that's quite a substantial step. By the way, this is not contingent upon any meaningful expansion of the CFC's mandate.

Given Labor's fundamental deception on electricity prices, which we've tried to expose day after day in question time—and these will continue to go up; that's what Labor's budget says will happen and what we know will happen—the coalition will be looking to move amendments in the other place to amend schedule 8 in its current form.

This is the big nasty surprise in this bill that typically you wouldn't get in a Treasury law amendment bill. This is an $11.5 billion injection to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to carpet the country in transmission lines. This will increase demand for material, staff and tradies across Australia at a time when inflation is already running hot. This is actually a time in the Australian economy when it wouldn't hurt for the Australian government to be pulling back on investment in big, major projects, because we know that they are driving up the cost of building anything else in this country. It's driving up inflation. We are getting warnings on this from business groups. I've been getting them from big economic commentators around the country.

Buried in schedule 8 is also a change to remove the safeguards around spending through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This will mean that the minister will be able to sneak in changes without consulting parliament. I think it's important that the parliament reflects on that change. This is taking away our ability to scrutinise these expenses. It's very much a retrograde step. Hidden in the explanatory memorandum is the revelation that the minister and his department will have a $1 billion fund in the department to fund whatever they want. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we all had a $1 billion fund to spend on exactly what we wanted without the scrutiny of parliament? I can imagine $1 billion would get a lot of things done in my electorate. I'm sure it would in all of ours.

Schedule 9 concludes the bill by confirming the tax treatment of certain military superannuation benefits following the Federal Court's gutless decision. This is certainly an element of the bill that the coalition strongly supports. I acknowledge the contribution from the previous government speaker on this. This is an important element of the bill. It's something that the coalition supports strongly. It's something that the federal government is taking the right action in addressing. I am pleased that we are going to be having this through this bill.

I just want to go back and dwell on schedule 1 a bit. This is the digital games tax offset. This is part of the digital economy strategy that the former coalition government announced back in May. It's a 30 per cent refundable tax offset for eligible businesses that spend a minimum of half a million dollars on qualifying for Australian development expenditure from 1 July 2022. In the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the coalition provided an additional $19.6 million over the two years of 2023 and 2024 to expand the digital games tax offset to include ongoing development work, known as 'live ops'—that's the term they use—on digital games following their public release.

There is certainly an emerging games sector in Australia. It's something that I know a lot of younger people in my electorate partake of. I note the previous speaker's experience with his sons in playing these games. My children are too young to partake of these yet, but I'm looking forward to the day when they can show me around Call of Duty and all those sorts of things. The many exciting Australian games that have been developed will be unlocked by the funding that will be available through this tax offset.

This measure received widespread support from the Australian digital games industry when it was first announced by the coalition, and that support remains today as we seek to legislate that further through this Treasury laws amendment bill. The digital games sector, as I mentioned, is expanding rapidly. It was worth $240 billion globally in 2020, and that market is set to reach $294 billion by 2024. This sector has generated in Australia about $226.5 million of revenue, an increase of 22 per cent on 2020, and 83 per cent of the revenue is from overseas markets. So it's one of these great Australian success stories that go unsung too often. People are producing products in Australia that are going incredibly well. They've had 22 per cent growth since 2020. Any industry that has received 22 per cent growth during the period of pandemic that we have just experienced certainly should be a shining light for the Australian economy and should be one that the Australian government seeks to support through measures like this. This will certainly help Australia to become a global player in game development.

I'll briefly dwell on schedule 2 before I conclude. The schedule amends the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to tighten the definition of digital currency to exclude cryptocurrency and assets that are not denominated in any country's currency or are not sanctioned digital currencies of Australian or foreign governments. This was very interesting, as I read into this one further. This measure closes a tax loophole opened after the government of El Salvador allowed bitcoin to be accepted as legal tender, back in June last year. I think many governments around the world were raising an eyebrow at El Salvador's approach to bitcoin, and I'm pleased that the federal government is taking action on that front.

To conclude: at a time when the government should be delivering certainty to business, the government has stapled a number of politically contentious measures into this bill. There's a lot in here that we support. There's a lot in here that the coalition government came up with, and certainly we applaud the fact that the new government has decided to take these things forward. But this is a time when business needs certainty, and unfortunately, with the two contentious schedules that I mentioned, the government is playing games. While we won't delay the bill's passage through this House, the coalition will be using the Senate to scrutinise these extraordinary powers that Labor are trying to sneak through.

(Quorum formed)

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