Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start by joining Senator Gallagher in calling this amendment out for what it is: a sweetener for Pauline Hanson's One Nation. I'd also like to make the point, as I did in my speech on the second reading, that schedule 2 of this bill will water down the requirement for companies to continuously disclose information material to their valuation, and I repeat the point that this will be to the benefit of the big institutional shareholders who rely on getting the good oil and the inside running and will be to the detriment of millions of ordinary Australians who rely on timely and accurate information about their investments. What we've learned is that this rigging of Australia's share market in favour of the top end of town is being facilitated by none other than Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. For all the mythology about them being here for the battlers, they're going to come in here tonight and sell out mum and dad shareholders to the forces of global capital that they like to talk so much about.

The amendment includes a two-year sunset clause for these provisions. If that were all the amendment was, then I could see why One Nation might come at it, but the amendment also says that the sunset clause will only be triggered if the government doesn't conduct a review within the two-year period. In other words, as long as the government gets someone in the Treasury to write a 10-page report in two years, the watering down of continuous disclosure obligations will remain in place. That means that, if passed today, even with this amendment, the watering down of continuous disclosure obligations will remain in place, and neither Senator Hanson nor Senator Roberts should pretend otherwise. So here they are today, joining with the LNP to do the bidding of the top end of Wall Street, the top end of the City of London and the top end of global capital. Today, they sit here, brothers and sisters in arms with the big investment banks, with private equity and with the hedge funds. One Nation are showing today that it's not about the people who vote for them; it's actually just all about them.