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

Minister, with due respect, you've already responded to that Senate inquiry report, unless there's another report that you're referring to. Perhaps you could clarify that for us today. As I mentioned in my contribution, there's been—and good on the government—some legislative reform following that groundbreaking Senate inquiry, initiated by the Greens. I'm asking you this again. You are a minister of the Crown, of the Commonwealth government. What is your understanding of why grandfathered exemptions have a public policy purpose? What is their public policy purpose? I think it's really important for your government to stand up today and at least provide an explanation as to why you're not going to support Senator Patrick's amendment.

It may be that you don't feel it's related to what we have in this bill here today, but it is technically allowed. I would note that on the multinational anti-avoidance law bill that came in in 2015—which, by the way, was the most significant reform around tax avoidance that this chamber had seen in a decade—the Greens supported your government in good faith to get that bill through here. We also managed to achieve transparency on private companies worth over $200 million, making their accounts publicly available in, unfortunately, a fairly simplified format. Your government agreed to that amendment at the time to get the multinational anti-avoidance bill through. You could have given the same argument—that it wasn't technically related to the MAAL bill. Nevertheless, in hindsight, I think we all agree it was a good thing. Of course, I'm sure the Labor Party and the Greens would like more disclosure on a lower threshold than $200 million. That's something I believe Labor have moved in this chamber since then.

Just for the record, please explain to us why we need to provide grandfathered exemptions for some of the wealthiest individuals and companies in this country. Why should they not have to disclose their financial affairs when other companies have to? Private citizens all put in their tax returns. They do the right thing. They know the consequences if they don't. Why is it that big companies shouldn't be providing these accounts to ASIC?