Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will briefly try to put this debate into perspective. That may be of assistance to the chamber and the 33 people listening in on News Radio right now—maybe 34, or 35 at a stretch! Senator Whish-Wilson has done a tremendous amount of work on this. The Australian Greens have not yet moved his amendment. The amendment proposes a repeal of a bill that was passed several weeks ago. I indicated at the time that, to quote Lemony Snicket, there was a series of unfortunate events where the debate was truncated. It was not a conspiracy. It just happened that I did not get to speak in time, I did not get into the chamber on time. Other colleagues were not here in time and the vote went through. It almost never happens like that, but it did happen on this occasion.

The outcome would have been the same: the bill would have gone through. The concern I have, which relates to the amendment foreshadowed by Senator Whish-Wilson, is whether there ought to be a disclosure requirement on private companies with a turnover of $100 million or more a year. I voted with the government that they should be exempt for this very reason: the reason put to me in private conversations was that in the food and grocery sector, where you effectively have a duopoly of Coles and Woolworths controlling something like 75 per cent of the $100-plus billion grocery market in this country, companies with turnover of $3 million or $4 million a year—that is their revenue but their profit margins will obviously be much, much lower than that; they might be making only $3 million, $4 million, $5 million or maybe $10 million a year—would be put at a competitive disadvantage in negotiations with Coles and Woolworths if they had to disclose that information.

I thought there was something in that argument. I gave an undertaking early on to the government to support them—perhaps I gave that undertaking too early—and some of the people who have put their concerns to me in respect of this. I think there was some merit to that argument. But there was absolutely no merit to the 'kidnap' argument given by the government. Frankly, it was ridiculous to suggest that these people would be at risk of being kidnapped by giving this information. That information is effectively the revenue, the taxable income and the tax paid by a company in an easy to access format. The idea that they would somehow become a kidnap risk is, frankly, ridiculous. And the proof is in the pudding: there was no advice given by the Australian Federal Police or any other law enforcement agency in relation to this. The kidnap argument was farcical, nonsensical; it had no credibility.

But I thought there was something in the argument about the $100 million turnover—that if you are a food processor releasing this information may somehow make you more vulnerable and compromise your negotiations with someone 'up the food chain' who has greater economic power. To put that in perspective, what we are talking about is information that can be obtained. I did my bit—and I hope the minister is pleased to hear this—to reduce the government deficit by $38 this morning when I charged to my Visa credit card $38, payable to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, to get a copy of the financial statements and reports of Teys Australia Pty Ltd. Now, I am not picking on them. They are a great Australian company involved in meat processing and abattoirs. They are a large Australian company and a family owned business. And they were good enough in the course of this debate to set out their objections. They did not do it behind an astroturfed front group—and the astroturf was not even green on this group; it was pretty parched. If there was ever a drought look astroturf, this is what the Family Office Institute Australia, or FOIA, is—and maybe their acronym should be 'PHOOEY!', because what they provided to us was barely adequate. I thought they represented many, many private businesses—but they had no members!

You can spend $38 at ASIC to get this information. Let's put this in context. There is a reporting requirement. If you are a business that has revenue of more than $25 million a year—not $100 million a year but $25 million a year—you are required to provide financial statements and reports to ASIC. So there is already an even lower threshold that applies. Looking at my copy of the Teys Australia Pty Ltd financial statement report, which I obtained for $38 this morning, it includes at page 5 a statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income. Their profit and loss statement sets it all out. At page 6 is a statement of their financial position as at 30 June 2014 and their current tax liability. I do not need to read out the amount but it sets it out in black and white. Further along, at page 24, there are all sorts of assumptions and details in relation to their tax, their revenue and the like—very comprehensive information. Page 24 sets out their income and the income tax that is paid and payable.

The information is already there. So I do feel somewhat misled by the argument that was put up for this bill in the first place. But I will still buy that part of the argument that having this information easily and readily available may in some circumstances compromise the negotiations of these companies—although presumably, given what is available for ASIC for $38, you get a hell of a lot more information in relation to this. So I wonder whether this amendment is not so much a storm in a teacup—it would be unfair to characterise it that way—but about trying to make it easier for information to be provided publicly about these companies. We can still get that information because of the ASIC requirement that any company with $25 million or more in revenue needs to provide some pretty comprehensive financial statements.

The reservation I have in relation to Senator Whish-Wilson's proposed amendment, which has not yet been moved, is there may be, in some circumstances, an issue of potentially prejudicing that company in negotiations. It is not a strong argument, but I can see the argument in certain circumstances. In order to keep faith with those companies that I think had a genuine concern about this,—although, I now wonder whether their concerns were misplaced—if there were an amendment along the lines of a company being able to say to the tax commissioner, 'We don't think you should release this because it could significantly prejudice our commercial negotiations,' that is the path that I would like to go down. I want to keep faith with the government on the intent of the bill, in terms of private companies, but I think their arguments have been quite weak. Some of them have been farcical in terms of kidnapping.

I think there is a way through this in order to deal with this. But, again, I emphasise to the 34 people listening on NewsRadio, what we are arguing about is the access of this information. If you want detailed information, you can get it anyway through ASIC for $38. It just means that the information is easier to get, even though it is at a much lower level—three lines of information in terms of taxable income and actual tax paid, or revenue and the taxable amount and the amount of tax paid. So that is pretty minimalist, but I think that there might be some circumstances where companies may want the assurance that the information is not publicly released so easily. Although, if you really want to dig around for it, you can get it through ASIC for $38. I am not sure if there will be further amendments moved in relation to this. I would like to think that there is a compromise possible in respect of this.