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

I think one thing we all agree on here in the Senate is that everybody should pay tax. We probably also agree that everybody should pay their fair share of tax. However, I understand there will be some subjective disagreements on what that fair share is. I can guarantee one thing we also agree on is that for some people to pay no tax is totally unacceptable, and for corporations to pay no tax is totally unacceptable.

The combating multinational tax avoidance issue has been before us now for the last three years. We have had a series of legislation that we have scrutinised and voted on. A number of us have sat on the committees that have taken evidence in relation to these bills.

I want to step back a little bit further, before I talk to those specific pieces of legislation and the legislation in front of us today, and thank the stakeholders. Going back to 2012-13, stakeholders came and visited, I think, just about each and every one of us in our offices. I am talking about stakeholders such as Micah Challenge, and the various community groups who sat down with each senator and their staffers and said, 'This issue of multinational tax avoidance is a very serious one. Why is it that the government is not acting on chasing some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations in the world to make sure they pay their fair share of tax?'

The Tax Justice Network is one example of a volunteer, not-for-profit network of community groups, mostly church groups, who have spent years coordinating across the globe to provide information to senators, members of parliament and officials within government departments to make sure that we are well informed on the serious issue of tax avoidance—not just by multinationals, by wealthy individuals, by private companies and by public companies, including small companies. This is an issue that we face every day. I want to thank on the record all those people who have come up to Parliament, and recognise and reflect on the fact that sometimes democracy works really well. We listened, as did the fantastic journalists in this country, who have also been very dogged in their pursuit of getting tax justice more broadly for stakeholders, and in fact for all Australian taxpayers who pay their fair share of tax and for all citizens who vote in this country. This is an international effort. This is not just Australia acting unilaterally. This is part of the G20. It is part of much broader discussions about how, between countries, we can combat tax avoidance by megacorporations.

In the 2015-16 budget, the government introduced a package of three key reforms to combat multinational tax avoidance. The first bill was called MAAL, the multinational anti-avoidance law. It sought to stop multinationals with significant Australian activities booking profits overseas to avoid paying tax in Australia. There was a doubling of penalties for large companies that enter into tax avoidance or profit shifting schemes and there was country by country reporting, which required large multinationals, of over $1 billion in capitalisation, to report to the Australian Taxation Office their income received and tax paid in every country where they operate. The underlying principles of these measures—transparency and information—allow us to make decisions about who is and is not paying their fair share of tax. It is quite remarkable that in this day and age there is very little information sharing between countries and that there are very lax reporting standards, even within countries such as Australia.

I remember very well when that package came to parliament. We had previously had a bill—it was originally a Labor bill—for tax transparency, for both public and private companies over $100 million to disclose basic metrics about their tax affairs. I remember that bill very well, because I was sitting in the chair when the bill came to the Senate. The speaking list collapsed and the bill was voted down unopposed. I spoke to my party room about this issue, because it was obviously extremely important to stakeholders. When the MAAL bill came to the Senate, I put up as a cheeky amendment the previous bill on tax transparency. What transpired was a significant debate in this place. In the end, to get the bill through before the Christmas break, which was essential, because that was when the reporting was due to start—