Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

There are two key questions here: of process and of ambition. First, to process. This bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill 2023, is an absolutely ridiculous document. Euphemistically titled 'tax accountability and fairness', the bill bundles together two miscellaneous and completely unrelated measures. This is a wedge if ever there was one. In what universe, other than a political one, does it make sense to put integrity changes relating to the PwC tax leaks scandal into the same bill as the government's lowballed tax changes to the PRRT. Other than the word 'tax', these two issues bear zero relationship to each other.

When it comes to the PRRT element of the legislation, what the government is proposing is far from adequate and is therefore difficult to support. This means that members of this place, again, have to choose between voting for the bill because of some of the positive measures in it or rejecting it because it has a major flaw.

The government has lowballed the opportunity to get a real return to the Australian people from the mega profits our gas producers receive. The gas giants, predominantly foreign owned, have had more than a free ride over recent years. Indeed, since Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine, they've been making windfall profits they could never have factored into business or investment plans. This is free money for them, and a wasted opportunity for this government, at a time when the community is facing a severe cost-of-living crisis. The government is paying the political price for being seen as having failed to address it as comprehensively as the public thinks it should.

As I've been saying for more than a year now, we should be taxing these multinationals on their windfall profits, not letting them make megamoney via the exploitation of an asset owned by all of us: the fossil fuels deep underground and underwater. The value of LNG exports rose by more than 60 per cent in the past year to $90 billion, but the revamped PRRT is forecast to bring in less than one per cent of that. Something isn't adding up—or maybe it is, given the historical relationships between governments and big business, especially fossil fuel companies. Woodside, for instance, booked a record profit of $9.65 billion after tax in the last financial year. Broad based tax reform and appropriate taxation of what lies beneath our feet would assist budget repair. Minerals in the ground and under the sea are publicly owned assets exploited for private gain.

Australia's prosperity has been built on public access to affordable energy—not anymore. Energy consumers, households and businesses are feeling the squeeze as never before. The government has provided some relief, but, while energy bills are not as high as they might have been, households and businesses are still feeling the pain. As we manage a precarious but essential shift to clean green energy, consumers deserve insulation from the undeserved bonus that gas producers have received because of the death and destruction that Vladimir Putin has wreaked upon the people of Ukraine. As I've said before, we need to end subsidies on the use of fossil fuels, we need more substantial reform of PRRT to ensure greater returns to the taxpayer, we need a road user charge and we need support from the Commonwealth to reform tax measures as they relate to property. I will be supporting the member for Warringah's second reading amendment.

In the lead-up to the budget, the Treasurer had three options in front of him on the PRRT. We discovered, courtesy of the Australian Financial Review, that he chose the option the gas producers wanted. What a surprise. Obviously it was the option that would cost them the least. The government estimates that its new approach will raise no more than $2.4 billion over the next four years—a drop in the bucket. Treasury presented the Treasurer with two other options, one of which would have effectively seen an 80 per cent deductions cap for the petroleum resource rent tax, as specified by the member for Warringah's amendment. The AFR calculated that, at current prices, that option would have brought in $21.9 billion in 2023-24 alone. Instead, as the paper put it back at budget time:

The big gas producers can go back to what they do best—exporting huge amounts of Australian gas and printing money …

The government may wonder why it's on the back foot and losing support with the public. Well, here is one of the reasons: they're doing the gas giants' bidding rather than doing more to help hard pressed households put food on their tables, pay for their kids' education and keep a roof over their heads.

In short, as I and several other Independent crossbenchers have been urging, the government should be looking at targeted initiatives as investment rather than merely a budget impost. For example, earlier this year I proposed lifting Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 40 per cent rather than 15 per cent. This measure had the support of the Grattan Institute and a number of eminent economists. They advised that it would not significantly add to inflation while easing cost-of-living pressures on low-income households. The cost over the forward estimates according to the PBO was not insubstantial—less than $5 billion—but that is affordable given the improved budget position and even more so with proportionate resource taxes. This would also reduce the downstream cost to the economy of the impact on the health and employment prospects of these hard pressed renters. As we saw during COVID, assistance to those who are struggling most eases a range of costs on the system and, in doing so, lifts all of us.

There is other low-hanging fruit. For example, the take-up of rooftop solar in my electorate is lower than it should be. I'm investigating how we can incentivise solar batteries and other household improvements, electrification, insulation and double glazing because, as the climate change minister has acknowledged, we're still struggling to get to 43 per cent by 2030, and these measures would also reduce household expenses. Then there's mortgage stress. AMP estimates that the greatest risk is among the 62 per cent of outstanding home loans taken out between 2020 and mid-2022. Pollster Kos Samaras says that, by the middle of this year, over 1.1 million borrowers in just New South Wales and Victoria were experiencing negative cash flow. In other words, their income wasn't enough to make repayments and meet other household expenses.

One idea worth a closer look is an idea dubbed 'HomeKeeper' by historian Chris Wallace. She suggests a program to allow the government to take a small equity stake in a property where the mortgage holder is suffering mortgage stress. The equity would then be held in a government housing trust until repaid on market terms. The assistance would go straight from the government to the bank, ensuring it didn't add to consumption and inflation. I plan to run the ruler over this idea and see whether it stacks up. One thing is for sure, without braver action and without taking some bigger steps, the widespread and growing alienation of voters from our democracy will worsen. I saw it in the United States under Donald Trump, and I'm seeing worrying signs of it right here now.

I also campaigned during the election for an independent, well-resourced inquiry into our tax system. That was not just about stage 3 tax cuts, but if inflation is going to be higher for longer, as RBA governor Michele Bullock predicts, surely they need to be in the mix. Labor lost the support of aspirational voters in the election, and the signs are there from research by Kos Samaras and the latest Roy Morgan survey of stress among mortgage holders. The government surely wants to get out from under this. There is only so much I can do is an Independent, but, as we've just seen with the government's decision to split the closing loopholes legislation, good ideas and persistent advocacy can make a difference for the better, even without the balance of power. In this case it goes to the revenue available here that could be put to good use should be government decide to tap it properly.

There is another important element to the member for Warringah's amendment. It says:

… the Government must stop presenting omnibus bills of this nature to the House combining complex, disparate policy issues that require greater interrogation and consideration …

We saw it with the closing loopholes legislation, and now here we see it again. It's an insult to the House and an insult to the voters we represent. Throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, into a bill is not good practice.

There are elements to this bill to provide some, but not much, more protection for whistleblowers, through extending protection for eligible individuals who report to the Tax Practitioners Board and reversing the burden of proof for certain protection claims. It is part of the government's response to the PwC tax leak scandal. The government deserves a small hand clap for this action. These reforms are needed, but, coupled as they are with the damp squid reform to the PRRT, I will not be voting for this bill. I note that we still don't have the broader protections for whistleblowers foreshadowed by the Attorney-General at the time the legislation passed through the parliament to establish the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

In 2019, Labor went to the election promising a whistleblower protection authority. Mysteriously, despite rising public concern about corruption, rorts and pork barrelling, that promise disappeared from Labor's platform for the last election. Without a whistleblower protection authority and assistance for those with the courage to call out corruption, whistleblowers will remain a threatened species, as we've seen so recently with the appalling treatment meted out to David McBride.

As I said, this is a small step in the right direction, but, again, if the government wants to regain the initiative it should go the whole hog on pork barrelling: establish a whistleblower protection authority or, at the very least, a properly resourced and funded commissioner to the NACC with specific responsibility for whistleblowers and whistleblowing. For the reasons outlined in this speech, I will not be supporting this bill.

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