Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I thank all senators who have contributed to this debate. It is important, again, to remember that this legislation seeks to implement—albeit in a slightly amended form as a result of discussions that the government has had with crossbench senators—a Labor party budget saving. This measure was initiated by the previous Labor government. It was banked by the previous Labor government in their last budget, but it was never legislated by the previous Labor government. We talk about delays in implementing budget measures into legislation; well, here we are still dealing with a savings measures initiated by the Gillard Labor government in May 2013, in their last budget, which we are seeking to give effect to—and of course, the Labor opposition under the current leadership of Mr Shorten is now opposed to what is their own savings measure. That is the circumstance, sadly, that we are dealing with here in Australia today.

The other thing that we have to remember is that what we are talking about here is a tax subsidy in relation to research and development for some of the most profitable companies in Australia. In the way that the legislation was introduced by the government, we are talking about businesses across Australia which are making more than $20 billion a year in profit. We have had a lot of commentary from the Labor opposition on how we should ensure that profitable companies, multinational companies, pay their fair share of tax. Here we have an opportunity to ensure that the particularly profitable companies—the top 20 or 25 companies at best—do not take advantage of what is, quite frankly, an excessively generous tax subsidy in the context of our current fiscal circumstances.

Enough has been said about this bill. As I have mentioned, this is actually a Gillard Labor government budget measure which was identified by the then Treasurer, Mr Swan, as contributing, at least in part, to the effort of budget repair. I know that the Labor opposition now has said, 'No, this was always about other things,' but the truth is that Mr Swan, the then Treasurer, is on the record as clearly identifying that this was a savings measure which was meant to contribute to the task of budget repair. Of course, now we are in the situation where Labor, under the current leader, is even more reckless and even less responsible than Labor was when Julia Gillard was Prime Minister and Wayne Swan was Treasurer. Thankfully, we have been able to work with reasonable and rational senators on the crossbench to give effect to this measure, and I am hopeful that the Senate will support the implementation of this measure, which, as I have indicated, was initiated by the previous Labor government.