Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

Given the time pressures we are working under, I will make some preliminary comments and then I will seek leave to incorporate the rest of my contribution. We are dealing with the Tax Laws Amendment (Simplified GST Accounting) Bill 2007. The bill amends the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 to extend simplified GST accounting methods to more small businesses and other entities with an annual turnover of less than $2 million that make a mix of taxable and GST-free supplies or that acquire a mix of supplies that are taxable and GST free for the suppliers.

Here we are in the year 2007 dealing with yet more amendments to the GST of 1999. Here we are seven years later dealing with amendments to the GST. I recall one particular occasion in the Senate: it was the end of the session and we were discussing the 1,652nd amendment to the GST at 6.30 in the morning. That was about 2½ years ago, and here we are eight years on. Frankly, I have given up counting the number of amendments we have had to make to the GST in this chamber, but it would now be well in excess of 1,700 amendments—so much for the GST’s ‘simplified tax system’!

Labor will be supporting these changes, and I have outlined in the speech that I am having incorporated the reasons why we will do so. Labor has announced and will be putting forward a policy with a much simpler approach for businesses making their superannuation contributions. At the moment, under the so-called choice of fund regime, the Liberal government has imposed a significant new additional form-filling and red-tape regime on employers. There are some 34 complex steps that an employer is required to go through, including passing out forms to employees, collecting the forms, checking them for details and making superannuation contributions to an ever-increasing number of superannuation funds. This is additional red tape imposed by a Liberal government on business.

Labor has announced a policy which will allow, as an option, employers to use a central clearing house to carry out these new red-tape requirements. Labor has announced that the clearing house will be contracted to a private-sector provider and will effectively transfer all the new red-tape form filling and possible legal liabilities from the employer to the clearing house. This is an example of Labor being proactive in seeking a practical solution to reducing new red-tape burdens on business introduced by this Liberal government. As I said, it will be optional for employers to use the new clearing house, a much simpler method. It has been widely welcomed by employer organisations. The Council of Small Business Organisations, for one, has welcomed Labor’s announcement of a clearing house to handle this new red tape.

Finally, in the context of yet more amendments to the GST, I remind my colleague Senator Murray from the Australian Democrats, who is sitting at the other end of the chamber, that he should bear partial responsibility for this very messy regime. Here we are, Senator Murray, seven years on from the GST, dealing with amendments that you, on behalf of the Democrats, signed up to.