Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

These are, of course, the amendments related to grandfathered large propriety companies that don't have to make annual reports to ASIC. The amendments that I'm asking the Senate to insist upon seeking to eliminate a perverse provision in the Corporations Act which exempts 1,119 large propriety companies from having to lodge financial tax returns to ASIC.

There are two reasons why this archaic provision needs to be eliminated from the statutes. The first is that it creates an elite status for particular companies that is inconsistent with Australian values. We must eliminate a privilege to very large companies and wealthy people that is not afforded to regular Australians. That's inappropriate. The second thing that these amendments seek to do in eliminating this provision relate to the provision itself providing for or encouraging aggressive tax minimisation through a lack of transparency. It's a loophole that has been in existence since 1995. It was supposed to be a temporary measure. When I talk about aggressive tax behaviour, that's was not something that I've dreamt up. That was something that ASIC put to an economics committee back in 2015-16. I'll read from earlier comments I made on this:

The Senate Economics References Committee conducted an inquiry into multinational tax avoidance across both the 44th and 45th Parliaments. One of the submissions it received, submission No. 32, was from ASIC, who raised the concern about these exempted companies. That led the Senate economics committee to ultimately recommend:

… that the government require all companies, trusts and other financial entities with income above a certain amount to lodge general purpose financial statements with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

My amendment seeks to implement that particular recommendation.

In practical terms, my amendment removes that special status for these exempt companies. Again, we have 1,119 companies that don't have to lodge these returns, and they're owned by people who are familiar names to the Liberal Party—people like Kerry Stokes, for example, and Anthony Pratt, Lindsay Fox and so forth. They are companies owned by wealthy people. I don't mind people having wealth. That's fine. Good on 'em if they can get ahead in this world. That's what we like to see. But they shouldn't have a privileged status whereby they are exempt from doing what every other company in Australia does when they hit the threshold—that is, lodge financial returns. So that's what I'm seeking to do.

I note that this amendment has done a bit of ping-pong, as described in one of the Senate briefings, between the House and the Senate on a number of occasions. It's my understanding that Senator Hanson this time around will not support the insistence, and for that reason I won't call a division but will record my insisting upon the amendment. I'd ask that that be recorded. But I'll also just let the coalition know this: Michael West, who does a lot of journalism around tax avoidance and around companies, is running a very extensive investigation into this, so you've got a little bit of time before all of the warts come out into the open as to who you are trying to protect, who you are trying to allow this privilege to continue for. So I would ask the government, on the voices, to indicate that perhaps they've changed their mind after listening to me.

I do have a couple of questions for the minister. The first of those relates to conversations back when the amendment was dealt with last time around. The government hasn't yet responded to the 2015 Senate report into multinational tax avoidance, Corporate tax avoidance report—part III: much heat, little light so far. So I would ask the minister: can the government please advise when it will be responding to that report from two parliaments ago?