Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not sure Labor learned its lesson from the 2019 election. They were so confident of winning under Bill Shorten. Their $11 billion attack on Australia's franking system was one of the issues which cost them that election. They conveniently ignored that it was their own Paul Keating who, in the 1980s, introduced the current system to prevent Australian investors from effectively being taxed twice, the system we have worked with to encourage investments by Australian individuals and investment or superannuation funds in Australian companies. It reduces the cost of capital-raising for Australian companies and stimulates job creation. It encourages Australian companies to fund their operations by using equity instead of debt. It provides incomes that offset the need for more government welfare in the form of pensions, so it needs to be left alone.

Why does Labor hate Australians who work hard and save and invest their money in additional income? Why does Labor hate aspiration and individual enterprise? Why does Labor feel the need to micromanage the way private companies raise capital? Labor insists on imposing increased red tape on the private sector that not only costs and harms our economy but wastes so much more of our own money in profligate, useless spending. Government spending under Labor has risen $188 billion, increasing federal debt and driving inflation and interest rates higher. Our priority should be ensuring accountability for this spending, not double-taxing investors who are supporting Australian jobs.

Labor needs to abandon its obsession with attacking Australian mum-and-dad investors who dare to seek financial independence just because they mostly don't vote Labor. If Labor needs more revenue, it only needs to implement reforms that ensure that foreign owned multinationals operating in Australia pay their fair share of tax. It would raise a lot more money than this latest attack on Australian investors. Labor never puts Australia and Australians first. Labor policies are hurting Australians, not helping them, as evidenced by the 13th straight interest rate rise since the election last year.

One Nation will be supporting amendments regarding schedule 4 and schedule 5 of this legislation. Schedule 4 relates to off-market share buybacks. Labor keeps saying that it's big business which does this, but in reality it's mostly retirees and low-tax investors like charities. The only large investors are super funds, and any benefits they gain go to their members—the same mum-and-dad investors. Labor's change means that companies which may use an off-market share buyback for a restructure or recapitalisation will lose part of their franking account balance or be forced to pay a franking deficit tax. They would permanently lose the amount of franking that would have gone to their shareholders. So I'm going to support the proposed amendment to schedule 4.

Schedule 5 relates to franked distributions funded by capital-raising. There is substantial concern that this change will have a major impact on Australian jobs and Australian investors and will encourage big companies to increase tax avoidance, deferment or minimisation. There is also concern that it will impact the sustainability of smaller Australian companies. The change is likely to discourage the reinvestment of company profits at a time when it is very much needed to arrest the rapid decline of Australian productivity. National productivity has already fallen by more than six per cent since the election of the Albanese government. The last thing we should be doing is making it worse. The committee inquiry into this bill, chaired by a Labor senator, acknowledged that schedule 5 needed clarification in response to almost universal feedback. This part of the bill was flawed—another one of the government's bills that's flawed! You have to wonder, then, whether the government has properly modelled the impact of increased company debt and higher costs of capital-raising.

Schedule 2 of the bill is yet another example of Labor's obsession with international climate change ideology and how this cult has infiltrated the highest levels of unaccountable international bodies seeking to dictate law in Australia. I refer to the so-called International Sustainability Standards Board, or the ISSB, created at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow in 2021. The following year, the ISSB developed standards for companies to disclose sustainability related financial information and climate related disclosures. While most large Australian businesses already do this sort of useless reporting on a voluntary basis, Treasurer Jim Chalmers last year signalled Labor's intention to make it mandatory. He said:

Our initial view is that mandatory reporting requirements should be phased in over time—both in terms of entities covered and the reporting that is required.

He said:

… we think the standards should be mandatory for large firms … they should be aligned as far as possible with global standards.

Labor puts the wishes of unaccountable international bodies before the interests of the Australian people and the Australian economy.

Schedule 2 of the bill inserts a new definition of 'international sustainability standards' into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. These are the ISSB standards. One Nation does not consider that our independent, sovereign country is answerable to these unaccountable international organisations. My colleague Senator Roberts will be moving an amendment to get rid of this change, and I urge the Senate to support it. Indeed, we won't be supporting this legislation unless all the amendments I've mentioned are approved. Government must get out of the way of Australian investors and the companies they support and let them do what they do best: create jobs and prosperity for our nation.