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

For the benefit of all members of the House and any members of the public who might be listening in, I thought I'd draw people's attention back to what the subject matter of this legislation is, in complete contrast to the febrile contributions from the member for Hume, followed and backed up by the member for Page, who painted a very dark picture of their own imaginings.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Bill 2024 does two things. The first thing that it does, through schedules 1, 2, 3 and 5, is that it amends the Corporations Act 2001 and makes a bunch of consequential amendments to establish a crisis management regime for clearing and settlement facilities in Australia. It's absolutely critical we do this, because clearing and settlement facilities play a critical role in the smooth operation of our financial markets. It's important that the Reserve Bank have the powers that it needs to move decisively to resolve, if needed, a crisis at a clearing and settlement facility. Any unmitigated crisis at a clearing and settlement facility could rapidly spread across the financial sector and into other areas of the economy.

Given that, I was astounded that the member for Forde, who is generally sensible on matters concerning financial markets regulation, has vowed to fight tooth and nail against the passage of this bill, a bill which empowers the RBA to deal with a crisis in our equities market, particularly in relation to clearing and settlement facilities. The bill does empower the RBA to, amongst other things in the event of a crisis, appoint a statutory manager to take control of domestic clearing and settlement facilities, transfer the business or shares to a third party and issue binding directions. In certain circumstances, these powers can also be used in relation to related bodies corporate of a domestic clearing and settlement facility. The bill also empowers the RBA to assist a foreign regulator to resolve a crisis in an overseas clearing and settlement facility.

Schedule 2 to the bill strengthens the regulatory powers of ASIC and the RBA in relation to financial markets infrastructure, giving them further powers to monitor, mitigate and reduce risks. Stronger day-to-day regulatory powers will help the regulators to take necessary action to mitigate risk and head off a crisis before it happens. I repeat that: to head off a crisis before it happens. Against that background, it beggars belief that somebody who wants to be the Treasurer of Australia and somebody who wants to sit on the front bench of an alternative government would vow to block the passage of this legislation. If your party espouses the principles of sound financial and economic management, it seems to me that this is rudimentary housekeeping business that any sensible government would want to do. Indeed, the Council of Financial Regulators has recommended these changes to the government and asked that we pass them as a matter of priority, and we will.

I want to deal with schedule 4 of the bill, which seems to have sent a wave of excitement, if not understanding, across members of the coalition parties. It deals with provisions for corporate climate risk disclosure. I just want to read a quote about the importance of this:

To maintain Australia's place in the global economy, the group considers it's essential there is a climate reporting framework that incentivises high quality, useful and internationally aligned climate-related disclosures.

I'm going to read that again:

To maintain Australia's place in the global economy, the group considers it's essential there is a climate reporting framework that incentivises high quality, useful and internationally aligned climate-related disclosures.

Many members of this House, after listening to the febrile contributions from the member for Page and the member for Hume, might be asking themselves: Who is this group that is recommending and saying that it is absolutely essential that we introduce this framework as proposed by the government? Could it be the International Socialist Network? Could it be the Australian Greens, whose leader has had a fair bit to say in this House and elsewhere over the last 24 hours? Could it be the Trotskyist internationals advocating such, according to the member for Page, 'a radical, left-wing, extremist Communist proposition'? It must be, given what we've heard from members opposite.

Well, I'm delighted to inform the House that this group is the peak bodies of 15 organisations, which include the Business Council of Australia, that far left-wing group of businesses; the Financial Services Council; the Governance Institute, the Property Council of Australia—now there are a bunch of red-rag, left-wing extremists. The Property Council of Australia—if ever we've seen an extreme left-wing organisation, you'd have to include them in the brackets, wouldn't you? The Business Council of Australia and the Property Council of Australia are amongst the 15 peak organisations who are recommending these changes.

The very simple reason why they are recommending these changes is that all of the concerns that members opposite have expressed about what's going on in financial markets—decisions and questions that are being asked by operators within financial markets about the businesses that they are investing in—are happening right now, but they are happening in the absence of a set of clear understandings, standards and reporting mechanisms upon which everybody can agree and through which everybody can make investment decisions and their credit decisions. They're happening overseas; those standards exist overseas. They don't yet exist in Australia.

You ask why we're doing this and why the 15 business organisations have issued a press release saying that these standards are absolutely essential and the government's got it right. You ask why they support this proposition. It's quite simple: they want the rest of the world to buy Australian goods and they want the rest of the world to invest in Australian businesses. Any party that proclaims itself the party of business and sensible economic management would have to understand that and support those two propositions.

That is why we are introducing this. We're doing it in a graduated way that understands there is a difference between large listed entities and large private corporations and small ones. There are graduated entry points. There's been extensive consultation and discussion with business, including finance businesses and the production sector, before we brought these measures before parliament.

I make these points simply to inform those members of the House who might have been listening to the disingenuous, febrile contributions by those members opposite which speak to the dark imaginings of their minds. This bill has nothing to do with what they're talking about, and the bizarre consequences that they seek to excite members about have nothing to do with what is proposed and what will operate as a result of this legislation. I say that with confidence. You don't have to accept my word on this. You don't have to accept the words of the government on this. You don't have to accept the words of the investor community on this. Just accept the words of the peak business organisations throughout this country, who are saying to this government, to this parliament—not just to Labor but also to the coalition—'For gods sake, will you get on with it, because we need to join the rest of the world and ensure that our standards are internationally aligned. We want to do it because we want the rest of the will to buy our goods. We want to do it because we want capital markets internationally aligned to be investing in our businesses.' With that contribution, I commend the legislation to the House.

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