Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

We're here today because of the arrogance of the Morrison government. When faced with the will of the Senate, a vote last week, Mr Morrison ignores it, and that is how he constantly treats this place. Every non-government senator votes in support of transparency, a reasonable amendment. We send that view to the House of Representatives, and Mr Morrison gives the Senate, yet again, the proverbial finger.

Last week, the Senate passed an order for the production of documents seeking information from the Commissioner of Taxation, with the documents being due this week. That had a similar focus: the list of all employers with an annual turnover greater than $10 million that received a JobKeeper payment, the number of employees paid, the total amount paid and any amount returned. It will be interesting to see how the government responds to that order for the production of documents.

Mr Morrison is not a leader who works with others. We have seen the results of that with the failed national cabinet strategy, which never comes up with a national position. It is because he can't negotiate, he can't cooperate and he can't conciliate. Removing this amendment that the Senate passed last week is another example of that. We supported this amendment because it's good policy. It makes sense, and the Australian people, footing the bill for a $90 billion program, deserve to know where that money went and why. It has added billions of dollars in debt—debt for another generation—and still the government refuses a simple request for transparency.

We don't think it necessarily needed to be attached to this bill. We think the government should have done it when they brought in the JobKeeper program. We've been on the record about that. We don't think it should be secret. With the work that the PBO has done which highlighted—my colleague Andrew Leigh has been running this issue on the House side—that $13 billion of a $90 billion program went to firms that increased their profit, we think it is in the public interest to know that. It's also in the public interest to know when moneys have been repaid. We think that should have been part of the contract that exists between the taxpayers and the firms who were given a lifeline through the most devastating of circumstances.

So this response from the House of Representatives is classic Mr Morrison. When challenged, he has a pathological inability to resolve deadlocks. He's stubborn, he's arrogant and he's even prepared to let businesses and families in need of the support that is provided by this bill be collateral damage in a game of chicken between two houses of parliament. This government was too quick in cutting off JobKeeper and it was too late in giving businesses affected by lockdown, and the workers who rely on those businesses doing well, notice of appropriate support. Again, in classic Mr Morrison style, never taking responsibility for anything, he tried to make it the states' problem, claiming that the lockdown decisions were made by the states and therefore the states should manage those decisions and their financial consequences. The lockdowns that the states were putting in place were a direct result of his failure on national quarantine and the complete shambles that is the national vaccine rollout. Those were the things forcing states into lockdown. He then told them: 'Well, this is your decision. It's your problem. It's your budget that should fund the support.' Then there was an unseemly interaction between state premiers and Mr Morrison about who pays for what and what contribution the Commonwealth should make. That was the environment we were in that led to this bill

We know now that $400 million will be going to Victorian businesses and hundreds of millions of dollars will be going to New South Wales by the time their lockdown finishes. In fact, we don't know how much will go to those businesses in New South Wales, but it is safe to say it will be in the order of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the Prime Minister, 460,000 companies and three million employees of those companies will be getting business support in New South Wales. But this support isn't coming because Mr Morrison wanted to provide it or even because Mr Morrison believed he should provide it; it was because he was shamed into it by state premiers.

So, yes, we supported this amendment. We continue to support the substantive component of this amendment. We will look at other ways to continue the pressure on the government to provide this information. It should be provided. It shouldn't require an amendment from Senator Patrick to put this arrangement in place. The government should have done it. If not at the beginning of JobKeeper, when things were unravelling very quickly, it should have done it when it reviewed JobKeeper. It should have done it when it had a look at where the money was going. It should have done it when it realised how many firms were profiting from JobKeeper. Shine a light on it. Provide that information to taxpayers who, for generations, will be paying this debt off. The government should have accepted this amendment.

I note the free advice from my colleagues on the crossbench, making it Labor's problem. This is the government's problem. It is their failure. They are in charge. It is their failure to put in place appropriate transparency measures here. But they have rejected the Senate's amendment, and the Prime Minister is prepared to make those businesses collateral damage in his stubborn engagement with this chamber.