Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I'll go through a few points raised by Senator Hanson. I'll also point out that Senator Roberts didn't answer my question, but I'll give him an opportunity again to perhaps do that. On the dairy bill, I asked the local dairy industry and they didn't want to support it, and that's the basis upon which I opposed it. In relation to the Advertiser this morning, go and have a look at the poll associated with the article that you referred to. Over 70 per cent of the people who responded to that said they don't think that the money that we're asking to be disclosed here is private information. It's public information. So I am certainly against it.

You say that my amendment could have unintended consequences, when we know that if it's not passed there will be—and have already been—unintended consequences. This is the biggest public expenditure scandal in the history of the Commonwealth and One Nation are basically standing there saying, 'We're going to help cover it up.' To suggest that my amendment doesn't do anything is to ignore the experience in New Zealand, where they've done exactly what my amendment does. They've managed to get a five per cent return on their wage subsidy program. We've got 0.25 per cent. There is empirical data that shows—and I know how much Senator Roberts likes to look at empirical data—that in actual fact transparency does work.

Going back to the question of mine that wasn't answered, which surprises me, this amendment does not cause disclosure of any foreign owned subsidiaries in Australia. That's money that may have been taken, probably using things like transfer pricing. I'm sure that there are oil and gas companies that may have subsidiaries that have collected JobKeeper—we won't know, because you're not going to support my amendment—taking taxpayers' money when it wasn't needed and using it to fill the pockets of foreign investors, funnelling our taxpayers' money from the pockets of Australians into the pockets of foreign investors.

I wonder why it is that you haven't chosen to include private schools. Private schools received JobKeeper—there are four in Ipswich that received JobKeeper. They didn't have a loss in turnover. That is money that has gone to private schools that won't go to the public schools, where the battlers are. Last night in the boardrooms around Australia there would have been champagne flowing, toasting to Senator Roberts and Senator Hanson. They're all about Bollinger, not battlers, and that's the truth of the situation. Why is it that you're letting private universities not disclose? Why is it that you are letting subsidiaries of universities not disclose? What about clubs? Perhaps some of the good golf clubs that Senator Roberts goes to—that people like me probably can't afford to go to—don't want the fact that they might have taken JobKeeper disclosed to the public.

What about unlisted public companies? They're just as capable of looting the taxpayer as anyone else. What about the private companies, those large, grandfathered companies that don't even have to provide a financial report to ASIC? They get away scot-free in relation to this. It's bizarre because One Nation have supported my grandfathering amendment, which is about disclosure by large private companies, and yet they won't support this, which is—again—trying to deal with the biggest public expenditure scandal in the history of this country. And it's not going away. There are stories that are going to break over the weekend as to some of the entities that have received this money and profited. And every time one of those stories breaks, everyone is going to be thinking about how it is that Senator Hanson and Senator Roberts did not support a good transparency measure.

I find it really confusing that the suggestion is made that my amendment is a dud, because on four separate occasions One Nation have supported it. For the last month, One Nation have supported it. When it comes to the crunch, however, they falter. They join the side of the looters. That is really disappointing. I wonder whether or not Senator Roberts can explain to the chamber exactly why they decided to exclude those particular companies. There are 10,000 companies, as the tax commissioner has indicated, whose JobKeeper payments would be disclosed under my amendment. There are 2,090 companies listed on the Australian stock market. There are 8,000 companies we don't get to know about that are the kinds of companies, entities and organisations that I have described. Political parties could receive JobKeeper. They could have received it and still maintained their income through donations and all the other methods that they use to receive money—and that won't be disclosed under this particular amendment proposed by Senator Roberts. Can he can explain that? It just doesn't seem to make any sense. I ask that Senator Roberts give an explanation.