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

I was facing in your direction, but I apologise if I was facing a bit too far to the right. Let me highlight this for those who are tuning in. We have just dealt with the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Proceeds of Crime and Other Measures) Bill 2015, which was passed a few minutes ago and to which Senator McKim and I moved some amendments. For my amendment of schedule 2, we worked with stakeholders in tax transparency to come up with a perfectly reasonable set of amendments, and Labor, while they thought the idea was good, agreed with the government that you should not move amendments at this late stage because it is bad process. And yet we just heard from Senator Gallagher that Labor are going to do exactly the same thing with this bill. Seriously, we are here together to work as adults to improve legislation and you just voted down our amendment—for what reason except that you said it was bad process to do exactly the thing that you are about to do? It is no wonder you are in trouble.

Let us talk a little bit about this and we can go further into it when we move to the committee stage. The Tax Laws Amendment (Implementation of the Common Reporting Standard) Bill 2015 amends schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953 and requires certain financial institutions in Australia to report information to the Commissioner of Taxation about financial accounts held by foreign tax residents. In turn, the commissioner will provide this information to foreign residents' tax authorities and, in parallel, will receive information on Australian tax residents with financial accounts held overseas. In order to verify relevant accounts, financial institutions will need to carry out the due diligence procedures outlined in the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, commonly known as the Common Reporting Standard, or CRS. The CRS is a standardised automatic exchange model that has been developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, and non-OECD G20 countries at the request of the G20. As it is a standardised model, the policy options are limited to Australia not implementing the CRS and the timing of the implementation.

We saw the Australian tax office commissioner, Mr Chris Jordan, come out swinging during the last estimates. He said that the Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2015, which the Greens passed constructively with the government and which was opposed by Labor in the last week of parliament last year, is helping the tax office deliver on multinational tax avoidance. They have had a number of multinationals come forward, cap in hand, to discuss with them the settling of their tax bills. Certainly, I do not think anyone has seen Mr Jordan quite so animated as he was in those estimates. He was happy that he had been given new sets of laws and new powers to deal with this most controversial issue.

This is what we discussed here again today, and it is good to see Labor being constructive on multinational tax avoidance. It is good to see them putting up some positive recommendations to raise revenue for the Australian people rather than being obstructionist, like they were late last year when the Greens tried to get some good laws in place on multinational tax avoidance. What did they do? Listen to Chris Jordan if you want to know how well that bill is travelling with the tax office and how it is enabling them to get on with the job. What did Labor do? They went and paid for a billboard in Sydney. Senator Dastyari paid for a billboard in Sydney saying the Greens had voted against multinational tax avoidance. What a load of BS! The Greens have achieved a constructive outcome by working with the government and stakeholders on multinational tax avoidance. It is good to see Labor following the Greens' example by actually proposing some constructive legislation to help our tax office get some dollars for the Australian people rather than looking to their own short-term political gain—which, may I say, totally backfired on the Labor Party. The Greens will be happy to work constructively with the Labor Party, the government and other stakeholders to continue to help the ATO deliver on multinational tax avoidance and get tax transparency in place. I will keep talking for the next 45 seconds until question time starts, but I will get back to the substantive part of my speech when we recommence consideration of the bill.

Let me say, as the rest of you join us in the chamber, that Labor stood up in the debate on the last piece of legislation 20 minutes ago and voted down a perfectly good Greens amendment on the basis that it is 'bad process'—bad process in this chamber, a house of review—to introduce an amendment at the last minute. And then Senator Gallagher got up and said she was going to do exactly the same thing herself when we get to the committee stage of this bill. It is absolute bloody hypocrisy.

Debate interrupted.