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

I'd like to thank all of those members who have contributed to the debate. It's an important debate, and there have been some very interesting contributions, which I shall come to in due course, and I'll address the second reading amendment, moved by the member for Hume.

Firstly, schedule 1 of the bill creates the digital games tax offset, the DGTO. For the first time, Australia will have a dedicated tax offset that supports a rapidly expanding digital games sector. The DGTO is a 30 per cent refundable tax offset for eligible companies that develop eligible games and spend a minimum of $500,000 on qualifying Australian development expenditure from 1 July this year. The DGTO will strengthen the Australian digital games industry, expand employment opportunities for digital and creative talent, enhance the industry's international competitiveness and make Australia attractive for foreign investment.

Schedule 2 to the bill amends the tax law to clarify that digital currencies continue to be excluded from being treated as foreign currency for Australian income tax purposes. This maintains the current tax treatment of bitcoin and other similar digital currencies. It's a clarification made necessary on the advice of the tax commissioner because of a decision of the government of El Salvador to recognise bitcoin as unrestricted legal tender. That decision of a foreign government introduces uncertainty about the status of bitcoin for the purposes of Australian taxation law. This provision will restore the status quo ante. The measure will apply to income years that include 1 July 2021 and subsequent income years.

Schedule 3 to the bill permits the Commissioner of Taxation to allow employers to rely on adequate alternative records rather than employee declarations and other prescribed records to finalise their fringe benefits tax returns. You can see from this and other measures in the bill why we describe this as a pro-business bill, but particularly a pro small-business bill. Schedule 4 and schedule 5 really make that clear. Schedule 4 to the bill introduces the Skills and Training Boost—a bonus of 20 per cent tax deduction until 30 June 2024, supporting small businesses to train and upskill their employees. Schedule 5 does a similar thing. It provides a similar benefit in relation to technology investment. It's the 20 per cent boost taxation deduction until 30 June 2023—again, supporting small business to adopt digital technologies.

Schedule 6 to the bill extends and adapts the financial reporting and auditing requirements of the Corporations Act 2001 to apply to registrable superannuation entities which will improve the quality, transparency and accessibility of financial reports for RSEs. This is a part of the government's superannuation transparency plan. It basically fixes the mess—the dog's breakfast that was left to us by the former government. They didn't have a requirement that RSEs file an annual report and lodge the annual report with ASIC. They had no agenda for transparency and for using the data collected by APRA to provide reports to members and, indeed, to members of the public and analysts about the performance of funds, including their expenditures, and they had a very confused arrangement in relation to annual member meeting notices that did just about everything except reliably inform members where and when their annual member meeting was. We're cleaning all this up, and schedule 6 is part of that program.

Schedule 7 to the bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to include on the list of deductible gift recipients the Australian Education Research Organisation Ltd, the Jewish Education Foundation Ltd, Melbourne Business School Ltd, Australians for Indigenous Constitution Recognition Ltd, Leaders Institute of South Australia Inc., and Saint Patrick's Cathedral Melbourne Restoration Fund. It does extend the current listings for the Sydney Chevra Kadisha and Australian Women Donors Network and removes the listing for the now defunct Mt Eliza Graduate School of Business and Government Ltd. The deductible gift recipient status allows members of the public to receive income tax deductions for the donations they make to those organisations. The government is supporting these organisations in the provision of valuable community services by granting them DGR status.

I'm going to say something about schedule 8 to the bill and use this as an opportunity to respond to some of the extraordinary, inaccurate and ill-informed claims that are made by way of a second-reading amendment in the name of the member for Hume. It seems to us that the crux of these amendments is to introduce a policy that the government campaigned on prior to the election, affirmed during the election campaign and announced on no less than a dozen occasions, including on budget night, that we'd proceed with. But for some reason the member for Hume seems to think they're hidden somewhere. Far from being hidden, we have contained on these provisions consistently for the last 12 months and will continue to do so. I can understand a former government that had 22 separate energy policies and never managed to land one of those energy policies—

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