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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This Bill will provide certainty to stakeholders about their tax obligations and benefit entitlements, reduce risks to the Commonwealth associated with uncertainty in existing laws and limit the retrospective application of proposed new laws.

Schedule 1 to the Bill provides an income tax exemption for qualifying grants made to primary producers and small businesses affected by Tropical Cyclone Seroja, which had a devasting impact on communities in Western Australia in April last year.

Affected primary producers and small businesses were eligible to receive recovery grants of up to $25,000, which were activated under thejoint Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018. Schedule 1 makes these qualifying grants non-assessable non-exempt income for tax purposes, assisting affected communities as they rebuild and recover.

Schedule 2 to the Bill amends the Treasury Laws Amendment (Putting Consumers FirstEstablishment of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority) Act to support the practical closure of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) and any transitional arrangements associated with AFCA replacing the SCT.

The AFCA Act will be amended to allow for the transfer of SCT records and documents to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for ongoing records management, and will also allow the Federal Court to remit appealed cases back to AFCA, where previously these had been remitted to the SCT.

Schedule 2 also introduces a rule-making power to the AFCA Act, to allow the Minister to prescribe matters of a transitional nature that may be required to support the closure of the SCT.

Schedule 3 to the Bill is part of a package of commitments to secure the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023. The Bill provides an income and withholding tax exemption to FIFA and a local Australian subsidiary, confined to income in relation to the event.

This will maintain Australia's strong reputation as a host for major international sporting events and, in particular, help promote women's sport.

Schedule 4 amends various laws in the Treasury portfolio to ensure those laws operate in accordance with the policy intent, make minor policy changes to improve administrative outcomes or remedy unintended consequences and correct technical or drafting defects.

The amendments have been identified by Treasury portfolio agencies, the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and policy divisions within Treasury.

Schedule 4 includes changes to the legislation that supports the Modernising Business Registers program. This program is an important economic reform that will consolidate over 30 business registers on a centralised and modernised business platform. Under the current legislation the legal transfer of all registry functions from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to the new Registrar occurred on 22 June 2022.

Since coming to government, we have discovered significant issues that have affected delivery of this program and put it significantly behind schedule. Given these delays, this Bill retrospectively defers the automatic transfer date of all functions to 1 July 2026.

The program will also be well over budget. The previous government originally committed just under half a billion dollars for the program. Preliminary estimates suggest full delivery of the program may now cost up to $1.5 billion. We will keep Australians informed as we go about the important business of managing this project.

The amendments made by Schedule 4 to this Bill further the Government's commitment to the care and maintenance of Treasury laws and will make it easier for Australians to comply with current laws.

Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition welcomes the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 to the extent that it extends and implements key measures of the former government's economic plan. This bill delivers key measures of the former coalition government's commitment to provide cost-of-living relief to disaster-affected communities, to support women's sport and to cut red tape for business. The bill brings together a number of Treasury measures which were included in bills that lapsed at the election. I note that the opposition will be supporting the bill.

The bill covers a number of measures from the previous government. Schedule 1 implements important protections around grants for recovery from Cyclone Seroja. Schedule 2 supports transitional provisions relating to the repeal of the Superannuation (Resolution of Complaints) Act 1993. Schedule 3 implements income tax and withholding exemptions for the FIFA Women's World Cup. Schedule 4 makes a number of minor and technical amendments, including tidying up drafting errors in consequential amendments in previous legislation and extending the automatic commencement date for modernising business registers.

This is an uncontroversial bill that wouldn't normally be debated, and the fact that we are debating it points to the lack of an economic plan from this government. Indeed, just this morning, we have seen another important report from the Productivity Commission, and all we have seen in response from the government is more economic commentary but not a plan. We could be debating the cost of living. We could be debating cost-of-living relief and measures to support families and businesses. But, instead, we're debating this.

Now, schedule 4, among many minor and technical changes, extends the automatic commencement date for modernising business registers. A lot has been written about this in recent days. All decisions taken with regard to the Modernising Businesses Registers Program were included in the coalition's 2022-23 budget, and then they were independently confirmed by the secretaries of Treasury and Finance at the 2022 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

Noting the minister's second reading speech in the other place, I must add that the government's attempts to politicise this would be far more credible if they weren't planning to drive up debt and government spending even further. The fact is that this government went to the election proposing to run bigger deficits—bigger deficits—and this was confirmed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office, which showed that the platform that this government took to the election would actually make the budget bottom line worse. In contrast, the PBO confirmed that the coalition parties were the only parties that went to the election with a pathway to improve the budget bottom line. So, while the opposition will be supporting this bill, the politicisation of this measure by the government, despite their supposed support of it, is a damning example of this government's approach to economic policy.

The Modernising Business Registers Program is a key deregulation measure that will cut red tape, reduce the compliance burden and support small businesses around Australia to manage their own affairs. It will unify the systems and the data, allowing users to manage their registrations and compliance in one simple location. This will support small businesses and small business owners to save time. It will make it easier to deal with government. It will cut red tape that's a drag on productivity, business owners' time and the resources of government. It is a proud initiative of the former coalition government. So, while we welcome the government's commitment to continue the program, it is astounding that the government is seeking to delay this measure further, not to next year but—to kick it into the long grass—all the way to 2026. So much for improving productivity!

So, while we don't oppose the bill, as it continues a lot of good work that the previous coalition government did, we call upon the government, once again, to outline a plan to address the challenges facing Australia's economy. The government can make choices to address these pressures and they can make those choices right now. The opposition can and will hold them to account for how they respond. And the risk for Australia is that this government will make a bad situation worse.

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

I indicate that the Greens will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022, although, as senators will be aware, we do have some amendments to the bill, which have been circulated in my name.

I want to speak about the issue of corporate tax transparency. I understand we will get an opportunity to debate these amendments in detail, but I do want to place on the record that the first of these amendments changes the corporate tax transparency requirements by removing the distinction between Australian resident and foreign resident private companies for the purpose of corporate tax transparency. It requires instead the ATO to publish information on the tax paid by private companies with a turnover greater than $100 million, regardless of where those companies are domiciled. The second of the Greens amendments abolishes the grandfathered list of private companies which, since 1995, have been exempt from having to lodge financial reports with ASIC.

Those senators who have been in this place for a while might recall the pretty unusual circumstances that resulted in the corporate tax transparency requirements that we currently have, and I want to be very clear about how we find ourselves in this place. In 2013, the former Labor government, with the support of the Greens, legislated that the ATO would publish the gross revenue, taxable revenue and tax paid by all private companies with a turnover greater than $100 million. That was legislated 2013 by Labor with the support of the Australian Greens. But, in October 2015, before the first of those transparency reports was released by the Australian tax office, the former government—a Liberal government—repealed this requirement in relation to Australian resident private companies.

Shortly thereafter the Greens, in the name of my friend and colleague Senator Whish-Wilson, moved an amendment to another tax bill to reinstate those requirements that the LNP government repealed in October 2015. At that time, former senators Xenophon and Muir reversed their previous support for the abolition of those tax transparency requirements and so the amendment to reinstate corporate tax transparency requirements passed through the Senate. But the Turnbull government rejected that amendment shortly afterwards in the House. Following sustained public and political pressure, in December 2015 the Turnbull government relented and agreed to reinstate the corporate tax transparency requirements for Australian private companies but at a higher turnover threshold. That threshold which was agreed to by the Turnbull government was a turnover threshold of $200 million a year.

It was the Greens who secured this agreement from Prime Minister Turnbull to partially reinstate corporate tax transparency requirements for large Australian private companies that he had repealed only two months earlier. Of course, what we got from Labor at the time was that they didn't like it. What we got from Labor was that they didn't like it—that the Greens were being pragmatic; that we didn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That's what we got from Labor. They got cranky with us because we didn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We got all pragmatic and actually worked to deliver something to improve transparency around corporate tax arrangements.

Of course, Labor didn't like it that we led a successful political, community and public campaign to force Prime Minister Turnbull to back down, so they spent, collectively, a good part of the next four years telling a lie to the Australian people—that the Greens watered down tax transparency for big companies, when in fact not only did we not water down transparency with regard to corporate tax arrangements; we improved it. That was a lie at the time, and it remains a lie today, because you can't water down something that doesn't exist.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brown, a point of order?

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim continues to use the word 'lie', and I ask you to rule whether that's unparliamentary in the context that he is using it.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim is referring to a particular party as a whole and not implying that about any individual senator. Senator McKim, you may wish to reflect on your language, but my understanding is it's within the standing orders.

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

As I was saying, it was a lie then and it's a lie now because you actually can't water down something that doesn't exist. That's a pretty straightforward proposition. That's pretty obvious. You can't mount a reasonable argument against the proposition that you can't water down something that doesn't exist.

To sum up, there were tax transparency requirements, then there weren't and then the Greens ensured the tax transparency requirements were brought back. We got what we could out of Prime Minister Turnbull, and we improved tax transparency arrangements as a result. It's just that the Labor Party didn't like the Greens not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, so they told this big fat lie and they repeated it.

Now the Liberal and National parties are out of government—and what a massive sigh of relief, I am sure, many people in Australia heaved when that result became known and was confirmed. With them gone, we are now putting forward amendments, which are on sheet 1596, to restore tax transparency thresholds for Australian private companies to levels that were in place before the Liberal-National coalition repealed them and, importantly, to levels that Labor supported at the 2006 and 2019 elections. I will note that, curiously, Labor did not take that policy to the election that has just been held. I've no idea why. Perhaps someone from the new government might like to address that question in a future contribution on this legislation.

So I do want to be clear about what happened—and I've been clear about what happened—because there has been a lot of misinformation out there, spread by the Labor Party, about what happened, and it's important that folks understand the historical record here. We had tax transparency requirements, then we didn't and then the Greens ensured they were brought back. We didn't water down anything, because you cannot water down something that does not exist.

Very briefly, on our amendment (2), during our debate surrounding corporate tax transparency, the issue of the 1,500 or so private companies who were exempted from filing financial statements with ASIC gained prominence. Basically, at the point at which the Keating government introduced public financial reporting requirements for private companies, a political fix was organised that meant that some of the biggest and oldest private companies were given a free pass.

I'll just pause there to observe that so much of what's wrong with neoliberalism is about the inside track that political donors get and that corporate mates get. That's because we have a system of institutionalised bribery in this country, where companies—and, in many cases, some of the biggest corporations in this country—bribe major political parties to get policy outcomes. That's why, for example, about one-third of the top-100-earning companies in this country pay absolutely no tax whatsoever. It's why the robber barons who run the big gas corporations are laughing all the way to the bank as they pocket their multimillion-dollar CEO bonuses—these corporate psychopaths who are cooking the planet. It's why they get away with that stuff: because they bribe the major political parties in this place. It's why the planet is cooking; it's why it we're in the sixth mass extinction event in the history of this little ball of rock that circles the sun; and it's why people are being reduced to economic units. The pandemic has ripped away the facade and exposed for all to see that, ultimately, people are units in an economy rather than human beings. That's how neoliberalism views them. Part of the reason that the major parties are so beholden to neoliberalism as a philosophical and economic construct is because they bribe the major parties.

Interestingly, I reckon that when they look at their ROIs—their returns on investment—in those corporate boardrooms, right up at the top, with the highest ROI that they achieve on anything, are their political donations. It's the best return on a dollar they ever got, because for every dollar they throw into the coffers of the Labor and Liberal parties they're making multi-tens of millions—hundreds of millions—and, in some cases, billions of dollars in return. And those corporate psychopaths don't care that their actions are cooking the planet. They don't care that there's a chance that billions of people will die this century—mostly brown or black skinned people, and poor people, I might add—because they'll be right. They'll have their little retreats on little islands in temperate parts of the world. They'll be able to buy ongoing survival for them and their kids for a little bit longer than the rest of the world, because they've grown obscenely rich by cooking the planet. That's the story they tell themselves at night and the story they tell themselves in their corporate boardrooms: these are some of the best returns on investment they get from the institutional bribery of political donations.

Back when the Keating government introduced public financial reporting requirements, the political fix was organised and that meant that some of the biggest and oldest private companies were given a free pass. And it's worth placing on the record that since the debate around corporate tax transparency has been up and running the Senate has voted to repeal this exemption on numerous occasions. Finally, now, we've got Labor with the numbers in the other place—in the House of Representatives. So we urge the Labor Party to support our amendments. They deliver a greater level of corporate tax transparency and they're in line with the way that the Labor Party has repeatedly voted on many occasions in this Senate. We in the Greens believe that this is an opportunity for this new parliament, with the balance of power in the Senate and where Labor plus the Greens, plus one other vote, can deliver legislation that, in this case, will improve transparency around corporate tax arrangements. And with Labor with a majority in the house of assembly—sorry, House of Representatives; I was going back to my old days in the Tasmanian parliament there, I'm sorry about that!—we can make these things a reality. Remember: corporate tax transparency is critical for applying political pressure to make sure the big corporations pay their fair share of tax so we can invest that revenue in things like dental health into Medicare, mental health into Medicare and making child care free, making people's lives better.

I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add

", but the Senate:

  (a) notes that:

     (i) the stage three tax cuts will make Australia's personal income tax system significantly less progressive,

     (ii) the benefits of the stage three tax cuts will flow overwhelmingly to high income earners and to men, and

     (iii) given the stage three tax cuts are not due to come into effect until 2024-25, the repeal of these tax cuts would not cause significant uncertainty, and

  (b) calls on the Government to introduce legislation to repeal the stage three tax cuts".

I flag that in the committee stage I'll be moving amendments.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. I've been in this place for a while but I remember that when I first got here the technical language of all this could be overwhelming. We've got lots of new senators in the place, and they're going to try to come up to speed with things quickly. And we have people here in the chamber listening; it's a pleasure to see fellow citizens come and see democracy in action. When we say we've got a TLAB, which is the short-hand, people go: 'What on earth is that? Why does this even matter?' Sadly, as a Labor politician in the government, I would say there's been an increase in cynicism in the community over the nine years of the previous government over whether the government is actually listening to them and will do what they require it to do.

I am very pleased today to make my contribution to this debate about legislation that the opposition have indicated they are going to support. They had a little bit of a whinge about some bits in it but that's normal for this place—sometimes that's helpful, sometimes not so. That's where we are: we're in the middle of a debate about something that's going to change.

If you are one of those people who thinks politics doesn't affect you and you can't make a change, you can't have an impact and it'll all just happen with or without you, I want to use this opportunity to indicate why this bill is really important. Some of you might be overwhelmed by the number of disasters that have struck this country in recent times. It's overwhelming when you look at the television and the images that come through of disasters that just seem to be coming one after the other. This particular piece of legislation deals with one of those major events that affected the community in Western Australia: Cyclone Seroja.

I've got an article here that made the BBC news but it was also covered by our ABC. This is some of the sense of what happened with Cyclone Seroja. It tore through the Western Australian town of Northampton:

… one of the school principals stayed on the telephone to the local priest as the house around the cleric fell apart.

Finally, Father Larry Rodillas got out from under his kitchen table and ran for his life to the school next door, sheltering in a classroom until the category-three storm had passed the next morning.

That's just one story of one incident that happened as a consequence of that storm. You can imagine families left without homes—incredible disaster. Everything that people had worked for is all of a sudden all gone. When the storm blows out, and the deafening silence returns, people have to try and pick up the pieces of their life. That article was an ABC article by ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt, by Cecile O'Connor. I'm sure the power of recording that story and putting it on the public record, and the advocacy of the people from the region to parliamentarians, helps make these processes we undertake here very important. Those stories of what's going on do matter.

The actual description the BBC has is that Cyclone Seroja ripped across a 1,000-kilometre stretch of Western Australia. Can you imagine how many people that is? It's not just houses. Often, if we hear this, as people who live in cities or in regional towns, we think about the housing, but the impact is massive on the agricultural sector and indeed the mining sector. Once you've had things ripped up and thrown around, you've got to replace them and try and make things work. It's very, very difficult for the entire community and the economy of that entire community. Kalbarri resident Debbie Major said the storm, which hit the resort town around 7 pm, raged through the night and was 'absolutely terrifying'.

You just thought, this is it. I would have thought that when we opened the door, that there would be nothing around us except that roof.

We are a small town. Half of it has been flattened.

The problem that then arises is how quickly a government can respond. In my home state of New South Wales, we've seen very, very different models of how governments choose to respond to the crises that exist. We all saw the images of Lismore, just overwhelmed, and we saw a politically timed non-show by the former Prime Minister—an abandonment of that community. Leading figures in the community who had some wealth on their side, including some of our foremost entertainers and performers, brought in their own private helicopters to winch people off roofs. That's one way a government can choose—not to respond to the reality of its citizens. Then there's the other way, in which I want to applaud the efforts of my newly minted minister, Murray Watt, who's from the great state of Queensland. Of course, we know that there are huge problems with insurance because of all these disasters in the northern part of our country. That problem has been around for the entire time of the previous government and has not been dealt with. So what can we do and what is this legislation doing today to help the people of Kalbarri and the people of the Mid West in Western Australia? What are we going to do?

Currently, the law as it stands says that grants provided under category C of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018 to small business and primary producers with a farm enterprise of any size that were affected by Cyclone Seroja are assessable as income for income tax purposes. Let's break that down. You're running a business. You got smashed by the cyclone. You do get some support from the government, and it's going to be taxed. That makes life very tricky. In addition to the physical tumult, there's a huge emotional burden, and some people just pick up sticks and move. The ones who stay, the ones who keep their businesses going, the ones who keep showing up to work, are people we need to support. We need to make it as easy as possible for them to get on and do what they do best. What we are going to do—and I am hopeful that this legislation will pass this place—is this. The new law says that grants provided under category C of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018 to small businesses and primary producers with a farm enterprise of any size that were affected by Cyclone Seroja are non-assessable and non-exempt income for income tax purposes, meaning that they are not subject to income tax.

That matters. It matters because it simplifies the way in which a tax return will be prepared for those businesses and those individuals, and I think it also shows to people who have survived Cyclone Seroja that a government can show goodwill and support them in what they do. We all pay our income taxes, and we all get the benefit of that in the services that are provided, the roads that we drive on and all the infrastructure that's there, but I don't think any fair minded Australian wants to see tax coming from somebody who's suffered incredible damage—physically, financially and emotionally—in a disaster.

That's what the very first schedule of this bill will do. There are four sections to the bill, and in the time that I have remaining—we only have limited time to make a contribution—I might go to one that I think will be of great interest to people right at this moment.

Many Australians will be watching, with great joy, the incredible success of our sporting people at the Commonwealth Games over in Birmingham. There have been remarkable performances from individuals and there has been remarkable support from the whole organisation that wraps around it. From the period of 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2028, there are implications for FIFA and its Australian subsidiary from income and withholding tax with regard to the FIFA Women's World Cup. When things aren't organised sufficiently, sometimes there is a cost. The role of government is to make sure that great organisations like FIFA can do what they need to do, can operate in a way that allows us to be successful, and to enable sporting diplomacy. There are amazing people who will be travelling to the country for FIFA, and we want to make sure that it's the best possible experience. For the successful delivery of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, we know that we'll have the benefit of enhancing Australia's reputation as a host of major international sporting events if we can get it right, and it stimulates the other sections of our economy as well. We also want to promote women's sport in a very authentic way. We've had incredible success with our team, so we want to make sure that we support them.

The current uncertainty that exists about the tax arrangements is currently impacting the capacity of the organisers of the FIFA Women's World Cup. They're having trouble putting in place all the arrangements that they need, particularly in relation to a part that faces into the community, which is ticket sales. Those ticket scales for this phenomenal event—the FIFA Women's World Cup, which is going to be a privilege for us to host—need to be ready to be able to advance with ticket sales from September 2022. The third schedule of this bill will be fixing up that problem for the FIFA Women's World Cup to make sure that we can provide the best and most seamless possible opportunity for that organisation to do their job.

The other two schedules deal with very, very important matters, and I'll probably be able to speak only to schedule 2 in the time that is left. It's about superannuation. If you're following, we've got whole lot of different bits of tax law that are getting slightly amended. Schedule 2 relates to transitional provisions relating to the repeal of Superannuation (Resolution of Complaints) Act 1993. People will be aware that in 2017 the government agreed to the recommendations of a very important review—the Ramsay review—to establish the Australian Financial Complaints Authority to replace the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. Superannuation is a Labor legacy. It's a fantastic asset for our country to have trillions of dollars in funds enabling people to plan for their retirement, to anticipate that they can live a great retirement with dignity, and having the benefit of that saving and its multiplying through investment to a point where they have a really great nest egg at the end of their lives. But sometimes there can be debate between a provider and somebody who has that superannuation, and they need somewhere to go. That is a very important part of what this particular schedule is going to do.

We know that the SCT stopped operating on 31 December 2020. At that time they had six remaining cases that they successfully transferred to the new body, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal finally closed on 5 March this year. What we're seeking to do with the amendments embedded in schedule 2 of this bill is ensure that the necessary administrative arrangements are in place. The Australian Securities Investment Commission, much more commonly known as ASIC—I note that there were comments on the radio from ASIC this morning about budgeting in this climate—talk to us about money, and they are going to have a role in managing people's complaints about superannuation. They need to undertake the ongoing management of those Superannuation Complaints Tribunal records. They will also take over managing any outstanding cases in the Federal Court, and they will be appropriately remitted back to AFCA.

What's good about this is it's an administrative change, in the background, to make sure that records will be kept and the people who need to do the job are authorised to do the job. The great thing by doing that and putting it in this legislation, doing the job of being a government, taking the careful work seriously, is we will make sure, by this action and this schedule, that complainants will benefit from it, they will not be adversely affected, and that AFCA is clearly now the primary external dispute resolution body responsible for handling superannuation related companies, and that it is appropriately resourced to resolve any outstanding Superannuation Complaints Tribunal matters.

That is the business of government that's going on in the chamber today, and I'm pleased to have been able to make a contribution on the Treasury laws amendment bill.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 in my capacity as the shadow emergency management minister. I note that the shadow finance minister has already put the opposition's perspective on the record, but I rise to talk to this bill because of exactly the case studies that Senator O'Neill was raising, the benefit of the passage of this bill to those communities and businesses that were devastatingly impacted by Cyclone Seroja in April 2021. This was the worst cyclone to hit Western Australia in 22 years.

As Senator O'Neill said, schedule 1 of this bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to ensure that the people who were provided grant assistance as a result of Cyclone Seroja don't get penalised through our tax laws. The amendment will confirm that payments provided to these small businesses and primary producers as recovery grants, under category C of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, will not be treated as tax in the sense of an assessable income. This makes sense because, for anyone in receipt of any of these grants, more often than not they've lost everything. They are given a grant to help them get back on their feet—and then the tax man comes in, with his hand out, to take it back. This is why we particularly support schedule 1.

I also want to take the opportunity to talk about the other side of these grants programs that the Commonwealth participates in. There's no point in having a tax exemption if the money, through the grant program, is not forthcoming or is frustratingly slow at being dispensed. I know that we've heard a lot about our major emergency events over the last few years. We've had floods, we've had cyclone events in Queensland and we've had the bushfires, but Cyclone Seroja was certainly a doozy and it lived up to its category 3 classification. It also hit areas that had never been hit by cyclones, that were just not prepared for cyclones. Therefore, so much of the damage was not just from winds but also from the debris that the winds whipped up and flew around wildly.

Cyclone Seroja started on 7 April as a relatively weak cyclone. But as it started to move towards the south-east it intensified, and within four days it had increased to category 3, a severe tropical cyclone. The impact area was estimated to be 133,000 square kilometres, with maximum wind gusts of around 170 kilometres an hour. There was significant damage to critical infrastructure, including roads, telecommunications and emergency services buildings. Several towns were severely damaged. In Kalbarri and Northampton, it was estimated that around 70 per cent of homes were seriously affected. A later report found that debris, not just winds, was the main cause of damage, and because the buildings in this region were not built to cyclone standards, it increased the extent and breadth of the damage.

In July last year, the coalition government, in conjunction with the WA state government, announced more than $104 million would be made available under the Commonwealth-state Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. This was the largest amount of funding made available in Western Australia's history. The DRFA is a joint funding program that we initiated in 2018 under which the Australian government may contribute up to 75 per cent of the assistance costs spread across the four categories. It is then delivered by working with the states.

Category A provides assistance to individuals immediately impacted. Category B provides assistance to state and local government areas for restoration of essential public assets and counter disaster operations, and covers assistance to small businesses, primary producers, not-for-profits and many individuals through concessional loans, subsidies or grants. Category C provides assistance to severely affected communities, regions or sectors, and includes clean-up and recovery grants for small businesses and primary producers. Finally, category D provides exceptional circumstances assistance. Importantly, while the Commonwealth can fund up to 75 per cent, it is a joint program. The states assess the type and level of assistance available. The states go out and assess whether there should be category A or category D funding. The states are also responsible for administering these assistance measures and getting the money out the door.

After Cyclone Seroja, 16 local government areas were deemed eligible for funding. I'm not certain how many have applied, but I know that, through contact with my office, there is general disappointment and disillusionment at the efficiency of getting the funding out the door. In fact, I have been contacted by many councils complaining about the slowness of delivery. They're asking, 'Why, when the $104 million has been announced, are there still people waiting for funding to go out the door?'

Over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of emergency crises arise. The now Minister for Emergency Management would be very quick to constantly deride and criticise efforts of the federal coalition in getting grants assessed and delivered, yet it was our government that actually implemented schemes through Services Australia to enable money to go immediately to individuals after times of crises.

Our government also established the disaster recovery allowance to let small businesses, tradies and employees impacted by emergencies have an ongoing allowance for up to 13 weeks so that they can keep food on the table. But there was no acknowledgement by those on the other side of where the states have to play their part. Now in government, I have not yet heard any comments from the emergency management minister about the slowness of getting the grants out the door. I'm not sure that he's applied the same level of scrutiny and derision to his colleagues in the Western Australian Labor government as he did to our Commonwealth government in previous emergencies. I suspect they've not been hounded at all. I suspect that now the minister, Senator Watt, has got the portfolio he was so expert on in opposition, he's decided that it's either too hard or too uninteresting—or, in his words, not his job, because it's the state government's job. Or has he passed it on to his new envoy, Senator Tony Sheldon? Is it now Senator Sheldon's job to make sure that the states are delivering the funding that we are providing to the states, to get it out the door?

This portfolio is not without its challenges, and it is certainly not the piece of cake to manage that Senator Watt used to make out it was on a regular basis in estimates or in snipes at question time or in his heckling across the chamber, which I do also note he doesn't really appreciate getting when he's rising to answer questions now that he's minister. So, whoever's in charge, whether it is Senator Watt or Senator Sheldon, I ask them to get on the phone to their state Labor ministerial colleagues in Western Australia and ask what the hold-up is. Ask them what they're doing to ensure that the $104 million put on the table by the coalition government, which has been carried forward by the new government—and I applaud them for that. But what is Western Australia doing to make sure that these grants are assessed and processed, and that the money is getting to where it is needed? Otherwise it doesn't make a difference if it's treated as taxable income or not. If it is not in the hands of the people who need it, it doesn't matter whether we treat it as tax or not.

In closing, I want to echo the comments of my colleagues on this side of the chamber about what we are doing here today. There is no reason that this bill needed to be put up for debate. It was a non-controversial bill. It's a mechanical tidy-up that shouldn't have taken time on the Senate program. While I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to highlight the taxation changes for those who may receive disaster recovery grants and while I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the issues of the state and Commonwealth jurisdictions when it comes to administering such grants, I fear that having this debate today highlights the dearth of economic plans from the government and of the economic plan the Prime Minister talked so much about during the election campaign, which we're still to see, and of the business that should be being put before us to help Australians address cost-of-living issues. In saying that, we support the bill, and I commend the bill to the chamber.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022. I begin by noting the wide support in the chamber for this bill, including amongst the opposition. I note Senator Davey's support, particularly for schedule 1, which is incredibly important in making sure that people affected by the devastating Cyclone Seroja, which hit parts of WA last year, are able to receive the full amount of relief funding without losing that much-needed relief in their tax returns.

I would also note some of Senator Davey's comments about the government's emergency services minister, Senator Watt, and I would commend Minister Watt for his work in getting straight out to the flood zones in South-East Queensland and northern New South Wales. And, of course, I commend his work in his portfolio, in doing what this government will always do, which is turn up, show up, take responsibility and make sure that people on the ground have exactly what they need in times of crisis like this.

Debate interrupted.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Walsh, standing orders require me to interrupt you to go to statements by senators.