Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I've gone through the additional measures that we have put in place, and I would say that this was a measure that we picked up from the former government in their March budget of, I think, last year. At the time that this was reintroduced post the commencement of this parliament, we didn't have the support to get TLAB 4 through for a variety of reasons—not related to this measure, specifically, but for other reasons. Ideally this bill would have passed the parliament earlier than now, but the reality is that most businesses, when they're doing their tax—and most businesses I deal with—are used to dealing with, essentially, claiming for expenditure that has occurred over the previous financial year. I don't think that is unusual. But I am not stepping away from the fact that, ideally, this measure would have passed through the TLAB earlier if we'd had the support.