Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was what was inferred, and I was listening in the chamber, Senator McKim. I object to the fact that my name has been taken, and that because I am outraged, which I am, at the behaviour of PwC, that naturally translates to agreement with the Greens solution. It clearly has been shown that neither the government nor the Greens consulted with anybody in the design of that amendment. Nobody was consulted. They found out about it in the paper, like everybody else. The government and the Greens have done a deal. It is a broken promise of the government for good governance, Senator McKim, quite simply. The Finance and Public Administration References Committee has not completed its inquiry. It has made no recommendations, so the sense from the minister or anyone else in this chamber that this has been through some committee process and that is a rationale for the amendment that was just passed is false. The minister might like to go back and review the Hansard afterwards and check to see whether the answers that have been put on the record actually stand up in the context of the committee process that we're undertaking right now.

The committee does not report until next year. It has made no recommendations in relation to what might happen with the Tax Practitioners Board. It may very well make recommendations. I very much appreciate the cooperative nature of the work on the committee by Senator Pocock, Senator O'Neill and Senator Pratt, which is shown in the way we are working through the issues here. We worked very closely together on dealing with this important matter. But we have made no recommendations, so any suggestion that this amendment came out of a committee process, particularly the one that I am chairing, is false. I find it outrageous that the government have to take on notice the question as to whether they have spoken to any of the bodies that Senator Smith mentioned, which are key bodies in the accounting profession. The fact the government couldn't answer that question effectively is the answer to the question. There has been no consultation, and there should have been. This is a very serious matter. The governance of the tax and accounting system through the Tax Practitioners Board is a very serious matter, and it warrants being done properly. It does warrant being done properly.

I think it's important that I put on the record that there have been no recommendations from the Finance and Public Administration References Committee. We will be considering this matter as a part of our continued work, as we should. But I reject out of hand any reflection that, because I'm outraged, we should adopt the Greens' solution. I do make the point that this government has a record of breaking promises, which grows as we pass through every week. I've named a couple of them today. We're just about to add another two to the process through the amendments that we just passed. The test on another one will come when we come to the vote on this amendment. The two are joined at the hip as part of the deal; there's no question about that in my mind.

The government should consider very carefully the words of Senator Smith when he said that we are trying to protect them from themselves in breaking yet another promise when we get to the vote on this particular amendment that the opposition has put forward. The government promised that it would have a proper cabinet and consultation process. It clearly didn't. It needs to lift its game in that sense. The important matter of the regulation of the accounting and tax professions through the Tax Practitioners Board should not be a matter of clandestine deals done out the back without anybody in the profession knowing. Quite frankly, the government should be ashamed of themselves for not going through a proper process so that, as Senator Smith quite rightly said, we can get the right outcome, which is what those of us sitting around the table in the committee genuinely want in the provision of oversight of these professions that are so important to the operation of so many of our corporations in this country. It's not the matter for a backroom deal. It's a matter for a proper consultation process, and the fact that the government can't say when the consultations were or even what the consultation process will be is a complete indictment of what they've done on this particular matter.