Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to use my second reading contribution on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Refining and Improving Our Tax System) Bill 2023 to speak about two matters. Firstly, I have some brief remarks on schedule 3 of the bill, regarding the administration of deductible gift recipient registers. I'd just like to place on the record the Greens' appreciation for the minister, Dr Leigh, and his office for their constructive engagement on this bill, particularly in relation to DGR status and the charity sector. My colleague Senator Rice has consistently heard from advocates and community organisations that they have welcomed the minister's approach to this portfolio and, in particular, the changes in leadership at the ACNC. We particularly welcome the minister's willingness to make the technical changes to the bill that were identified during the committee process and understand that they do go a long way towards addressing a specific set of concerns held by charities working overseas.

I also want to speak to schedule 2 of this bill and the amendment that has been circulated on sheet 1925 in my name, and I do foreshadow that amendment. This amendment would require the minister to make regulations that require the Future Fund to, on a six-monthly basis, publish details of where it has invested $250 billion of money that is actually money that belongs to the Australian people. Australians have a right to know how the Future Fund is investing their money, and $250 billion is obviously a significant sum of money that belongs to the Australian people. For too long, the Future Fund has been operating behind closed doors and making investments that have, frankly, had calamitous environmental and human rights impacts. Organisations had to resort to FOIs to reveal some investments of the Future Fund in weapons manufacturers. We also had to dig into Senate estimates to reveal that the Future Fund was investing in fossil fuel corporations that are complicit in cooking the planet. Those FOI requests revealed that the Future Fund had invested in arms companies with links to the Myanmar military. We found out through estimates that the Future Fund had $3.4 billion of Australian taxpayers' money invested into the 50 biggest fossil fuel companies in the world. Australians' money was being used to fund arms manufacturers with links to the junta in Myanmar, and Australians' money was being used literally to cook the planet. It is completely unacceptable that the Future Fund invests in those things, and it's also unacceptable that the only way the Australian people found out about how their money was being invested was through FOI work and through the work of Greens at estimates committees.

Mandatory disclosure, which this amendment would establish, will reveal whether the Future Fund is still investing in weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel corporations, as it has regularly done in the past. It shouldn't be as hard as it is today to hold the Future Fund to account, and it shouldn't be as hard as it is today for the Australian people to find out how their money is being invested by the Future Fund. These amendments will shine the disinfectant of sunlight on the operations of the Future Fund, and they will ultimately bring about a change in the Future Fund's investments and hopefully force them, finally, to become an ethical investment fund. As it stands, there is no requirement for the Future Fund to proactively report on what it's doing. Proactive disclosure would increase the pressure on the Future Fund to make investment decisions in line with the values of the Australian people, and that is not too much to ask from a fund that is the steward of $250 billion-plus that actually belongs to the Australian people.

The reporting rules will be a legislative instrument that is subject to disallowance by the parliament. I refer the Senate to the supplementary explanatory memorandum issued by the then Minister for Finance, Senator Birmingham, to the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 in respect of the proposed amendments to that bill on sheet ZC133 for a more detailed explanation of the clauses in this amendment. I look forward to the Senate's support.