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

Let me tell you of the people that came into our offices and every single senator's office and said, 'We need politicians in this country to do something about multinational tax avoidance': the Oaktree foundation; Micah Challenge; the Tax Justice Network. We are doing something about that here today, but the Labor Party are shouting from the sidelines because they want to score political points. They do not want to deliver an outcome for those who have worked so hard in this country to get tax justice in Australia.

Let me tell you—these stakeholders will be coming out today saying: 'Thank you for doing a deal. This is what we want. Thank you for standing up for us today.' We are here representing the Australian people. We are leading on this debate. All the Labor Party are doing is scoring cheap political points. We are happy to debate this through to the early hours of the morning because we are on the side of angels. To quote your leader, 'The Greens are on the side of angels.' I can certainly tell you, Mr President, we want to see outcomes.

Let me say this just shows today how irrelevant the Labor Party have become. They have been dealt out of getting an outcome on tax justice in this country. We have looked at this, we have talked to stakeholders and we have made a decision. We could have all scored political points against the government on this. We could have loaded this up and given it back to the government as a Christmas present. But do you know what? There would be no Christmas present in this country for those who want tax justice. This would have been a political point for the Labor Party and for the Greens if we had wanted to go down the dog whistle politics road. What we have done today is delivered for stakeholders in this country. We have delivered. I am proud to say that we have general purpose accounting, Senator Xenophon's amendment. We have agreement—

Senator Conroy interjecting—