Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

As we know, yesterday marked the six-year anniversary of the Greens joining with the Liberals to vote down the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Today will go down in history as another remarkable day when the Greens again have joined with the Liberals to help Australia's richest companies keep their tax dealings secret—selling out on ordinary Australian taxpayers in the process. Not only have the Greens sold out on themselves; they have sold out on everyday Australian taxpayers. Let us be clear about that. This goes beyond their own base but goes to everyday Australian taxpayers. I think that is completely immoral.

The other thing that I think would sit very uncomfortably with the Greens is what their former leader, Christine Milne, would think of this dirty deal that they have done with the Liberals. It was Christine Milne who helped initiate the multinational tax inquiry to start with—and I give her credit for that. The former Greens leader, Christine Milne, certainly has more respect and integrity when it comes to issues of multinational tax avoidance than any Green in this place today, because all of them are selling out on that legacy that she leaves behind—a legacy where she knew that it was not fair and it was not right that hundreds and hundreds of Australian multinational companies were getting away with not paying their fair share of tax.

Let us go specifically to what this deal means for Australians. It means that, in effect, where there was going to be a threshold of $100 million where transparency laws would apply to about 900 private firms, now the Greens, siding with the government, will exempt two-thirds of those companies.