Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's an interesting phrase, to badly paraphrase one from a movie: a TLAB is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get! This is a little bit like that. We heard raised again—and the senator is agreeing with Senator Shoebridge way too often in this place!—the same representations made around Defence. I think the senator raised a good point, to look at a more equitable solution over the coming months and, potentially going back to the place where Senator Shoebridge came from, looking at New South Wales Police superannuation. They have disability payments made and it lowers their ability to conduct funds into their own superannuation. Maybe we could expand that to ensure that all our services are getting looked after in the right way.

This Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 4) Bill 2022 is fairly benign and has some very good things in it. I will speak about the digital gaming tax offset and how important that is. It's a long-forgotten industry that's worth billions and billions of dollars. It is as big as the film industry, and having an Australian presence in it is important. I note that the industry was waiting on this bill coming through; there are tax benefits kicking off for them on 1 July and it will give them the certainty to go out and start hiring. Importantly, they can get these projects on the books in Australia.

I had the great benefit of going with IGEA, the interactive gaming & entertainment association, to a number of software firms which are set up and waiting for this to come off. We saw Naresh Hirani from Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends and Valorant; my son tells me that Valorant is a very good game, but I haven't tried it. They have their offices set up and they're waiting to make commitments with staff. They're looking at the benefits this will bring, very similar to the film industry. They're modelling on the Canadian experiment, where Montreal and Quebec put some tax benefits in. They're called the 'Silicon Valley of the North', with thousands of people employed across that area. It's good.

We met with Edward Fong from Ubisoft on exactly the same point. Ubisoft is the maker of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and For HonorFar Cry is a very entertaining game, for those who enjoy that. They're waiting on this, and this will give them certainty. I also met with James Lockrey and Nico King from Chaos Theory Games. They've been a software-for-service employer and maker, but they're about to launch one of their first bigger-budget games, Crab God: the Mother of the Tides, based on a crab on the reef keeping their patch healthy and raising their kids out of danger. This step will benefit them.

These are the good things in this box of chocolates; these are the hazelnut whirls to me! These are the things in this bill which are important. But, as Senator McGrath pointed out, the turkish delight is there as well: billions of dollars for infrastructure and transmission lines, and the billion-dollar fund for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. All that is in there, and it's not right. This is a bill that, as Senator McGrath said, we will try to amend—to improve, we would say. As Senator Shoebridge said, there's scope to look at further things in schedule 9, and we would like to change schedule 8. This government has picked up the digital gaming tax offset bill of the previous government. It is needed, it is wanted and it will lead to massive investment and good employment. I commend the bill to the Senate.