Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Polley. The government doesn't believe that this amendment is necessary, though it will be supporting it to facilitate the passage of this bill and this very important legislative change. The amendment as outlined by Senator Polley would, of course, force a review after two years and cause the minister to cause a written report about the review to be prepared and tabled in each house of parliament within 15 sitting days of the report being given to the minister. We will be supporting the amendment, though, as I mentioned, we don't believe that this review is necessary as there is no legitimate reason to possess and use sales suppression software. However, we do want to see the important measures in this bill go through.

We thank the opposition for its support of the bill as a whole. In order to make sure that what is a very important bill is able to go through, with very important measures for dealing with the black economy and ensuring that we don't have people able to simply dodge taxes or, in some cases, use very sophisticated means to dodge taxes through sales suppression technology, we will be supporting this amendment. We look forward to the hopeful passage of this bill.