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

Just to summarise, it's taken 16 years to get a process in place and a legislative outcome in parliament to provide director identifying numbers in this country on our business register. At the same time we're going to get a modernisation of our business register and a reform that sees the ownership of this register and the management of this register transferred from ASIC to the Australian tax office. It's taken 16 years of talking to get something as simple and important as a verification process, an authenticity process, in place that provides transparency in corporate Australia as to who is actually the director of a company so that we can have faith and confidence that those directors are genuine.

I want to raise in my contribution today another legislative reform that's essential to providing transparency to help prevent against tax evasion and to help prevent against misconduct, phoenixing—a whole range of corporate misconducts that we often talk about in this place. And that's the introduction of a beneficial ownership register in Australia. This is something that the Greens have been campaigning on for some time as well as a number of stakeholders around the country who want to see tax justice, who want to see the rorts cracked down on. I'll just read for senators a very brief comment from Michael West, who does fantastic work on exposing some of the rorts that we have in our tax system, the companies that often get away without paying tax and, more importantly, the solutions to help fix these issues. Michael says:

What is the point of a beneficial ownership register?

For those who have not had the pleasure of acquaintance with a beneficial ownership register, the point of a beneficial ownership register is that if people are required to disclose what they own, the things they own will be taxed more effectively.

Pretty simple really. Rather, it seems:

Better to hide them, make up silly names and concoct tortuous transnational structures which nobody can decipher. Better to stuff money into tax havens.

To put it another way, the point of not having a beneficial ownership register is therefore to facilitate tax evasion and allow corporations and wealthy investors to conceal their assets.

It might interest the chamber that it's not just the Greens that have been campaigning to have a beneficial ownership register put in place in this country to provide transparency on matters related to tax evasion and other unethical behaviour. Previous member of parliament and minister for finance Kelly O'Dwyer is also on record as having public support for a beneficial ownership register. She is not only on record; she instituted a process so that we could actually have legislative reform in this area. She announced a consultation paper in 2016 and said that a public register would greatly benefit in the fight against tax avoidance. Minister O'Dwyer at that time said:

Improving transparency around who owns, controls and benefits from companies will assist with preventing the misuse of companies for illicit activities including tax evasion, money laundering, bribery, corruption and terrorism financing.

But surprise, surprise: large parts of the corporate sector in this country, including tax lawyers and others, have strongly opposed the government's plan to establish a register and have lobbied very hard to prevent this from happening.

I've put a number of questions both directly to the Australian tax office and to Treasury at estimates, on notice and in Senate inquiries as to why this reform has never eventuated. I suppose I should take pause for thought that it took 16 years of this issue being raised in parliament before we actually got something as simple as a director identification number. But I want to tell the senators who are interested in this debate what Mr Chris Jordan said when I asked him about his views on a beneficial ownership register. He had a slightly ambivalent view on the need for it. He accepted that anything to do with increasing transparency was good. However, he said:

A register of beneficial ownership is just, you know, what someone says someone else owns so, you know, it could be good but it could be just a lot of 'stuff' that doesn't really help us.

But the important point was what he said next:

Because if, you know, people want to do the wrong thing they'll be putting all sorts of different names in places, so I'm not sure it's a panacea as such.

Stop and reflect on that: putting different names in place. The whole point of the legislation before us today is to take away the ability for dodgy operators to put up dodgy names as Australian company directors.

I said yesterday that if you go to the Australian Business Register and look up company directors you can find Elvis Presley as an Australian company director. You can find Bob Marley, not to mention Homer Simpson and a whole range of interesting people who are registered as company owners in Australia. That's going to stop if we, hopefully, pass this reform in the Senate today. When we have a modernised registry, we have the technology structures in place and we have the ability to give a company director an identification number for life, it will make it a lot easier and a lot more effective to therefore have a beneficial ownership register. I hope that this is just one of many steps in place to see that legislation come before parliament.

I would finally like to cover where we're at with a beneficial ownership register. I last asked about this issue in October estimates last year. I put it to Treasury. I said that I understand the government is committed to the G20 high-level principles of beneficial ownership transparency. And I should point out that this is not just an issue in Australia. It's a huge issue in the United Kingdom. They've continually dodged legislation to bring in a beneficial ownership register. You can only guess why. There have certainly been a number of allegations around the fact that this government and the UK government are simply protecting their donors and tax evaders.

But I asked a question around the international push and whether we were complying. Our commitments made under previous Minister O'Dwyer were specific commitments to begin work to implement a government decision on transparency of beneficial ownership companies. I wanted to know exactly what the government's decision was going to be, and the process. The answer I got was that, yes, the government is committed to enabling regulators and law enforcement agencies to tackle illicit activities, such as tax evasion, terrorism, financing and money-laundering, by giving them access to information on who owns and controls companies, allowing authorities to follow the money and to reveal the natural person that ultimately benefits from a company.

But this was part of the government's Open Government National Action Plan in 2016-2018—a plan that expired more than two years ago. I have continually put questions to Treasury, asking: 'Where are we with this? What's happening?' And I get complete and total nonanswers back, as in: 'Government decisions are in that plan, and that's two years old. Take that up with the government.' In other words, there is no momentum in this country at all for a beneficial ownership register.

Now, the government did consult publicly on this in 2017. Apparently they have consulted on a number of options to improve beneficial ownership transparency, including the establishment of a central register. But the government needs to commit to this, to step up and to make it happen. I hope that Senator Hume, in her contribution today, will be able at least to respond to this as to where we are with the beneficial ownership register. I know she had a lot of respect for Minister O'Dwyer, who personally wanted to see this register put in place. I even note that previous senator George Brandis supported this initiative.

But, lastly, having director identification numbers in this legislation today will make it a lot more effective and easier to have a beneficial ownership register. I will finish my contribution on that point.