Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last night, Guardian Australia published a list of 1,500 companies that can keep their tax arrangements secret from Australians. The government continues to oppose Labor amendments that would ensure tax transparency to its multinational tax bill in the Senate. Why is the Prime Minister fighting tooth and nail for megawealthy companies to keep their tax arrangements secret from Australians when the government wants to make every Australian pay more, with an increased GST?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member knows full well that the exemption of these large proprietary companies from filing their accounts with ASIC does not extend to any exemption, obviously, from giving their accounts to the Australian Taxation Office. The fact is that there is full transparency for the Australian tax office, and it has full insight into every business in Australia—every company, every proprietary company—whether it is large or small. So the changes to the bill that the honourable member's party is proposing will not raise one cent of additional tax. They make absolutely no difference to the tax collections.

Now, to save the honourable member time, I know that his colleagues have been out there talking about a company they found on that list, Turnbull & Partners Holdings Pty Ltd. That was back in the nineties—the Turnbull & Partners investment bank. You see, many of us actually had a career before we came into politics! I know it is a shock, but a lot of us made a living doing other things! I had that investment banking business for many years, in partnership with my very good friend Neville Wran, and at that time it was without question a large proprietary company.

It has remained on the list of exempt proprietary companies, but it really should not be on the list at all because it is not a large company anymore and it does not meet any of the tests of being a large company. In fact, it is a relatively small company. In any event, it is a passive investment company, as you would expect, and is, I suppose, a remnant of the investment banking partnership and business I operated so many years ago. So we will be writing to ASIC to make sure that it is no longer left on that list of large, exempt proprietary companies.

I hope that saves the Leader of the Opposition from having to make the inevitable killer counterpunch that was coming next in the pack!