Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill 2023 does several things. In September, the Treasury released a two-year roadmap for reform of our tax ecosystem. This bill is part of that reform, the catalyst for which was the PwC tax leaks scandal. In May this year we learnt that a consultancy firm to the government, PwC, had used information gained from its consultancy to promote tax avoidance and evasion. Not only did it fail to report a serious breach of confidentiality, despite having a legal obligation to do so, it then fought tooth and nail, repeatedly, to claim legal professional privilege to withhold information during tax audits.

The scandal exposed serious and apparently systemic problems not just in PwC, where more than 50 staff members were directly involved or had knowledge of this leak, but also in the corporate behaviour of the companies implicated in this scheme. This bill therefore expands the promoter penalty regimes currently used to deter the promotion of tax avoidance and evasion schemes by including those which fall within the diverted profits tax provisions or the multinational anti-avoidance law. It increases the maximum penalties applicable under the promoted penalty regime to levels which will now be significant. They won't just represent the cost of doing business and be brushed off by those who profit from tax exploitation schemes.

The bill prolongs the period during which the commissioner can take action against an entity, and it extends the scope of the promoter penalty laws to apply to all ATO rulings. It extends at the whistleblower protection to eligible whistleblowers who make disclosures to the Tax Practitioners Board and permits disclosures to people who may assist whistleblowers, such as psychologists or medical practitioners, or those who might be prescribed by future regulations such as professional associations.

The bill introduces reforms relating to the operation and powers of the Tax Practitioners Board. It extends the default period in which the TPB must conclude investigations, giving it an extra 18 months. It also permits the TPB to publish the results of investigations with more information about the investigations than they can presently divulge. The bill will permit taxation officers and TPB officials to share protected information with Treasury about breaches or about suspected breaches of confidence with the Commonwealth. It will allow taxation officers and TPB officials to share protected information with prescribed professional disciplinary bodies.

These are all important measures and decisive action is warranted. However, the period for consultation with industry about the way that the changes suggested in the bill will operate and interact with existing state and territory regimes has been very limited. A two-week period is far too short for a quality consultative process. For example, the Law Council of Australia, which acts on behalf of 16 law societies and bar associations and 90,000 lawyers, has said that a truncated consultation process risks introducing laws that are not fit for purpose and which may require subsequent amendments. A two-week consultation period does not require, represent or provide adequate time for effective consultation, especially for representative bodies such as the Law Council. Similarly, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand have said that brief consultation time frames do not promote the achievement well-considered and workable policy outcomes. They suggested that objective integrity and governance reforms cannot be achieved efficiently unless the measures are designed carefully and implemented appropriately by all stakeholders.

As a person on the crossbench in this place, I can appreciate the criticisms by others in relation to legislation made on the run, and the often extremely limited opportunities that we're given to review proposed new laws. Again and again, we are denied the opportunity to consult with experts in the field or with our communities—to consult broadly and consider the broader application of these laws and how they impact on other policy areas. Sadly, we've seen that again in this House in the last few weeks—and even in the last 24 hours. Today we find ourselves in the invidious position of having to vote for a bill that contains provisions which been arrived at too quickly and with limited consultation—a bill which responds to a problem which is undermining public trust and which must be addressed urgently. As parliamentarians, it is our responsibility to scrutinise the work of government—to represent the interests of the public in decisions and laws which are made here. I take that obligation very seriously and, frankly, I feel that the opportunity to fulfil it is far too frequently stymied by this government.

But wait: there's more! This bill, oddly—and randomly—also deals with an amendment to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987. The PRRT currently allows very generous deductions for capital investment. This limits significantly the revenue raised from fossil fuel companies like Santos and Woodside—gas companies which are currently reaping billions in profits. The bill, as it is, caps the availability of deductible expenditure incurred in relation to a petroleum project for a tax year. As it's being proposed today, this bill means that the offshore LNG industry will pay more PRRT more quickly than it would under the current regime. But the bill will cap deductible expenditure to a maximum value of 90 per cent of assessable receipts in respect of each LNG project in the relevant tax year. So a company will have to pay PRRT on only 10 per cent of its income after an initial seven-year grace period. While this change is consistent with the recent recommendation from the Treasury's gas transfer pricing review—which was, let us remember, commissioned in terms made by the former government—in my view it does not go anywhere near far enough. For the last 18 months I have been calling for changes to the way that the PRRT is levied in this country. The government is talking about an additional $2.4 billion income from our fossil fuel industry over four years. While of course we welcome all positive changes, this is a piddling sum! I can only imagine the amount of lobbying by the oil and gas companies that took place to ensure that this government adopted this 90 per cent price cap.

Our government is selling us short. What can we do? As a start, I would suggest that the deductions cap should be 80 per cent, not 90 per cent. Doing so would increase our fiscal balance by about $2.9 billion and the underlying cash balance by about $2.6 billion over the 2023-2024 forward estimates period. My constituents regularly express their extreme frustration at the inadequacy of the tax paid by multinationals, especially by offshore oil and gas companies. We have a weak resource tax regime; it's far too generous to the oil and gas companies. The windfall profits that these companies receive are grossly unfair and they're selling us short. Norway has amassed a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund. On 1 September 2023, our equivalent, the Future Fund, was worth $205 billion.

The bill is extremely problematic. It conflates two separate but individually important matters, which should, more appropriately, be treated separately. They've been bundled together in what might cynically be suggested as preventing a veto to the more contentious elements of the bill.

The Albanese government has to stop presenting omnibus bills of this nature to the House. This combination of disparate policy issues deserving of much greater and more mature interrogation and consideration than is currently allowed by the time frame of the legislation development, and for the debate allowed in this House, is undermining the Albanese government's credibility. It is detracting from the government's capacity to present clear and coherent policy, and it is detracting from other members of the House's ability to hold the government to account, to provide useful suggestions for improvement of legislation and to represent our constituents to the best of our abilities.

The Australian public is already experiencing a crisis of trust in government. A Roy Morgan report in September this year referred to the moral blindness displayed by many of Australia's corporate leaders. This lack of professional integrity has been enabled by a culture of contempt for process and for principle. We can restore trust only by acting ourselves with the utmost respect for due process, by acting with consideration and judiciousness in our composition and our consideration of legislation. I'm very disappointed that the government is failing to do this and that it is depriving other members of this place of the ability to do so.

I cannot commend this bill to the House.

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