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

What I can say to Senator Xenophon is that the government does not agree to the imposition of additional red tape which imposes additional costs without delivering an additional benefit.

The global expert, when it comes to the appropriate policy frameworks and standards for taking effective action against multinational tax avoidance, is the OECD. Indeed, a former Labor Assistant Treasurer, David Bradbury, the former member for Lindsay, works in that part of the OECD these days, reporting to Pascal Saint-Amans. What this government is doing is following international best practice as set out by the OECD.

This exact point that Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Xenophon are putting on the table was carefully considered by the OECD. The OECD, in our view for good reasons, made a judgement that it would not be appropriate or consistent with best practice to require the publication of this sort of information. As I said in my response to Senator Whish-Wilson, this does not provide additional information for tax compliance purposes that the tax commissioner cannot already get or does not already obtain through the income tax return or the associated schedules. This is essentially just imposing an additional compliance burden and an additional cost for the sake of it. Australia has to watch its international competitiveness. We should not just willy-nilly impose additional costs on business for the sake of it when it does not add value, and we certainly should not be doing it outside the well-considered framework of international best practice as laid out by the OECD. For these reasons the government will not be supporting either Senator Whish-Wilson's or Senator Xenophon's amendment.