Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath, welcome to the chamber—the chamber of horrors for you guys, no doubt, given that I think you are the fifth person we have had on the front bench dealing with this bill and the proposed amendments. You referred to greater red tape. Could you be more precise about that, given that the financial information these companies have to give to ASIC is already lodged, and it is a lot more extensive than what we are asking for. To make it clear for you, the disclosure requirements we are seeking to include are: the ABN and name of the company or individual; the total income for the income year; the taxable or net income, if any, for the income year; and, income tax payable, if any, for the financial year.

We are asking for four things which are nowhere near as substantial as what has been lodged at ASIC. In fact, Senator Xenophon showed me an ASIC request, which he had done this morning, I presume, for another South Australian company. I looked at it very briefly and it was full of consolidated accounts and information. So where does the red-tape argument come from if we are simply asking for four things to be taken out of that and added to a register for around 1,000 companies? Perhaps that is the last piece of information. We estimate that around 1,000 companies would be captured by this register.