Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill, as colleagues have pointed out, undertakes largely technical amendments via two schedules. The first concerns the regulation of charities, and the second concerns the tax treatment of offshore banking units. As my colleague Senator Watt explained in the contribution he made earlier, although Labor supports these changes—they are sensible changes—we will be taking the opportunity presented by this bill to address other very serious problems created by the Morrison government in these two policy areas.

It's ironic, really, that the government has described the charities provisions as an opportunity to support and strengthen the charity sector, because in fact the charity sector is under incredible attack. It is regulated by a person who has shown himself, by so many words and deeds, to be demonstrably unsuitable to occupy the position of charity regulator. The government now plans to give him further powers to persecute those charities that are not, it seems, of a flavour that the government likes. The government proposes to extend the ability of the charities commissioner to deregister a charity for a summary offence or because the charity commissioner anticipates that the organisation will commit a summary offence. It is draconian, it is unnecessary and, as group after group after group has pointed out, it will lead to unconscionable anomalies in the way that charitable organisations are run, to enormous amounts of red tape and to an unfair regulatory exposure which does nothing to strengthen the charity sector and can only weaken it.

This is indicative of a government led by a man with a glass jaw. Mr Morrison hates criticism. He cannot deal with criticism. You can see him seize up when he's even asked a question, especially by a lady journalist. I've seen it happen. So it's not surprising that he seeks to muzzle those organisations that might advocate for the people who don't have very much, for people with disabilities, for the environment or for future generations that would like a climate that they can live in safely.

It's not surprising that Mr Morrison doesn't like some of the arguments that are put forward by Australia's charities, but it's unacceptable that he would seek to regulate them in the way that is proposed. Labor stand with the charity sector that is being unfairly targeted in this way. That's why we are moving a second reading amendment calling on the Senate to note that the government is pursuing these changes to charity law that could stop charities and churches from speaking up for core principles and articles of faith in civil society, limiting their freedom of political communication and limiting their participation in our democratic system. This is not in Australia's interests. It's on that basis I move the second reading amendment that I believe has been, or is shortly to be, circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) despite promising to streamline reporting in the charity sector, this Government is instead pursuing changes to charity law that could stop charities and churches from speaking up for core principles and articles of faith in civil society, limiting their freedom of political communication and participation in our democratic system; and

(b) while the Government boasts about its multinational tax measures, it has failed to curtail the use of tax havens and tax avoidance schemes by multinational corporations."

Turning to schedule 2, this is the schedule of the bill that amends the Income Tax Assessment Act to remove the preferential tax treatment that is provided for offshore banking units and provide transitional arrangements for those existing offshore banking units. In 2018, the OECD forum on harmful tax practices determined Australia's OBU regime to be a harmful and preferential tax regime. In response, the regime will be closed to new entrants. Existing participants will be allowed to use this tax treatment until the end of 2022-23. It's good that the government is finally cracking down on the schemes that let multinationals take advantage of our tax system. It only took them three years! Like so many things with this government, it is never ever quick to move. But it's better late than never. But there is more to do, and that's why the second reading amendment that I referred to earlier calls on the Senate to recognise that the government has failed to curtail the use of tax havens and tax avoidance schemes by multinational corporations.

As the Leader of the Labor Party has flagged, Labor will have more to say about multinational tax ahead of the next election, but in this speech I wish to foreshadow a substantive amendment that Labor will be moving during the committee stage relating to JobKeeper transparency. Earlier this year we found out that $13 billion in JobKeeper payments went to firms that increased their turnover during the pandemic. It went to Monaco based billionaires, men's only clubs and the highest fee-paying private schools in the country. This is a shocking waste—$13 billion is more than the government spent on the childcare subsidy last year and it is more than the government spent on public schools last year. JobKeeper was supposed to support firms that were suffering. It was supposed to support workers whose jobs were at risk. It was never meant to go to firms whose profits were rising. It was a good idea. Labor argued for a scheme which would support people's connection to their workplaces during the worst phases of the pandemic, but it was implemented very, very badly.

If the Morrison government had avoided this waste, it could have afforded to extend JobKeeper to the one million casual workers who missed out on any support. It could have saved people from losing their jobs. It could have saved those many young people, mostly women in the hospitality and retail sectors, that missed out. It could have saved them from losing jobs and livelihoods during the pandemic. If this waste had been avoided, we would have more to spend on supporting Australians currently in lockdown who are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table. The Prime Minister has never asked any of these companies to pay back a single cent. He says that calls to pay back JobKeeper are the politics of envy.

We know what the answer to this problem is. It's something that the Liberal Party is apparently entirely allergic to—and that is transparency and accountability. Transparency is not a radical solution in this context. Both New Zealand and the United States keep public databases of companies that receive income support. It doesn't make a difference. In the early months of JobKeeper, 15 per cent of the money went to firms with rising earnings. Some companies have repaid it, with repayments totalling $225 million, about a quarter of a per cent of the total. But almost all of those repayments have come from public companies. What's the significance? Those, of course, are the companies whose JobKeeper receipts had to be reported in their annual reports. Those were the companies exposed to some measure of public scrutiny.

In New Zealand, which has an online register listing all recipients of their wage subsidy scheme, around five per cent has been repaid. It's a very big difference, isn't it, to the very small amount that has been offered back here by those companies who did pretty well? This is most likely a result of greater transparency. Labor has been calling for more transparency for a long time. It's why we were happy to support an amendment that Senator Patrick moved in the last sitting fortnight. Unfortunately that amendment was to the bill providing support for people in lockdown. The government is so opposed to transparency that it's pretty clear it was willing to play chicken with that support for people in lockdown, to avoid the consequences of scrutiny of their waste and mismanagement. There was a chance that insisting on the amendment here in the Senate would have delayed support for those in lockdown, including thousands in Western Sydney. It says something about this government that the Prime Minister was prepared to let the livelihoods of Australians on COVID support payments become collateral damage in his fight against the transparency that the Senate has demanded of his government. It's an outcome Labor doesn't want to risk, but we strongly believe that the public deserves to know how its money is being spent. We were and we remain committed to finding other opportunities to force the government to be more transparent about JobKeeper payments. I will have more to say about Labor's amendments during the committee stage.