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

It seems as though everybody wants to move to have some kind of inquiry into this. The government has today announced it is going to be appointing an independent consultant, Mr Peter Costello's previous chief of staff. The Labor Party is saying that it is going to have a look at this in the tax avoidance inquiry. The Greens have had advice from the parliament that that is inappropriate given the terms of reference.

We do not understand why Labor will not support this motion. It seems as though it wants to shoehorn gas royalties and the PRRT into the corporate tax inquiry, which will not look at this. These companies pay no tax, not because they are avoiding tax but because the laws we have put in place allow it. Our resources tax regime is completely broken, but it seems as though Labor does not want to take the opportunity to fix it. Perhaps it is because previous Labor ministers have gone to work for the oil and gas industry. We need to get to the bottom of this. The references committee we are proposing will do that.