Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is an extraordinarily important matter because, while the minister has correctly said that there have been agreements made with 10 countries who have been labelled tax havens, there are another 32 that the government has not made agreements with. They include Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Netherlands Atilles, San Marino, Seychelles, US Virgin Islands, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Granada, Liberia, Lichtenstein, Marshall Islands, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Turks and Caicos Islands, Vanuatu—about whom the tax office issued a warning today regarding insurance matters—Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica and Guatemala.

What the Assistant Treasurer may have made a statement to the chamber about in his two minutes was the use of tax havens by the Future Fund. I note that Mr Costello, the former Treasurer, has been given a guiding role for the Future Fund and I wonder if the minister might come back to the chamber at some time and explain why the Future Fund has money in what are regarded as tax havens.

I am in good correspondence with the Commonwealth Bank about its new establishment in Malta, which is no longer seen by the EU as a tax haven but is by the US congress. Nevertheless, the problem here is that the millions, if not billions, of dollars being avoided in tax through the use of tax havens has to be paid for by other, dinkum taxpayers in Australia, and it should be stopped.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.