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representatives vote 2021-03-17#4
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2022-07-08 11:17:56
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Title
Bills — Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill 2021; Second Reading- Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill 2021 - Second Reading - Keep motion unchanged
Description
<p class="speaker">Mark Dreyfus</p><p>With this Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 1) Bill, the Liberals, under Scott Morrison, are attacking the rights of every shareholder in Australia, and they're doing it all because of an infinitesimally small number of class actions. The Treasurer actually says, in his own explanatory memorandum, that the main impact of these changes will be to reduce the amount of time that companies and company officers must spend on ensuring that they have complied with their obligations to provide accurate and timely information to shareholders. Heaven forbid that company officers spend time on ensuring that they are making timely and accurate disclosures to shareholders!</p><p>This bill is bad news for Australian shareholders and it is bad news for the Australian economy. Mum-and-dad investors, self-funded retirees and other individuals across Australia make life-changing investment decisions on the basis of what they are told by companies and by company directors. Australian investors know that they can generally rely on what they are told because the laws introduced by the Howard government impose strict disclosure requirements on companies and company directors. Not anymore, if the Morrison government gets its way. The changes proposed by the Morrison government would put the narrow self-interest of a tiny number of individual company directors above the interests of millions of mum-and-dad investors and self-funded retirees and of large institutional investors.</p><p>According to a survey conducted by major commercial law firm King & Wood Mallesons, these changes do not even appear to be supported by a majority of senior company directors. The Mallesons survey asked 195 company directors and senior executives about the Morrison government's temporary changes to continuous disclosure laws. Only 11.3 per cent said that they relied upon those changes, and almost 80 per cent said that the changes should not be made permanent.</p><p>Why would the vast majority of company directors and senior executives oppose the Morrison government's attempt to make it easier for people like them to mislead or withhold important information from shareholders? My theory is that it's because most company directors understand that Australia's strict continuous disclosure laws are ultimately good for everyone. They make Australian companies more attractive to investors, including international investors, and so make it easier for Australian companies to attract capital. In other words, Australia's strict continuous disclosure laws make it easier for company directors to do the job that they are there to do, and that is to promote the interests of shareholders. I also think that most company directors in Australia do the right thing and have no problem with laws that require them to do no more than the right thing, and that is to provide shareholders with timely and accurate information about the company they've invested their money in.</p><p>It must come as a shock to the Morrison government to learn that there are people out there in the Australian community who are happy to do the right thing and who actually have no problem with laws that keep them accountable! This is a foreign idea to the Morrison government, which is a government at war with transparency and any notion of accountability.</p><p>When the Auditor-General discovered that the Morrison government had used $100 million of taxpayers' money as a Liberal Party slush fund, in the so-called sports rorts affair, and revealed that the government had paid Liberal donors in Western Sydney $30 million for a $3 million block of land, the Prime Minister did not apologise. No minister took responsibility. No minister was reprimanded or sacked. Instead, it was the Auditor-General who was punished, with a cut to his budget, because it's never the wrongdoer who is punished or held accountable by the Prime Minister.</p><p>The Prime Minister has made it clear that ministers in his government can get away with pretty much anything. They can rort grant programs, use forged documents and even call a young woman who alleges that she was raped—</p> <p class="speaker">Sharon Claydon</p><p>The minister, on a point of order?</p> <p class="speaker">Luke Howarth</p><p>It's in relation to relevance. The member opposite is not being relevant to the bill.</p> <p class="speaker">Mark Dreyfus</p><p>I am speaking to the second reading amendment.</p> <p class="speaker">Sharon Claydon</p><p>Order! Your point is overturned. Please proceed.</p> <p class="speaker">Mark Dreyfus</p><p>It's never the wrongdoer who is punished or held accountable by this Prime Minister. This Prime Minister has made it clear that ministers in his government can get away with pretty much anything. They can rort grant programs, use forged documents and even call a young woman who alleges that she was raped in the office of the Minister for Defence 'a lying cow'. Ministers can do all those things and more with complete impunity. And with this bill the Prime Minister is telling company directors that he wants them to be able to act with impunity too, without having to worry about being held to account by shareholders. To the great credit of most company directors in Australia—at least, according to King & Wood Mallesons' survey of company directors—they have rejected the need for these changes, because most company directors are not like the current Prime Minister. Most company directors and most Australians have more integrity in their little fingers than the Prime Minister has in his entire cabinet.</p><p>So afraid of scrutiny is this Morrison government that it has gone to an enormous effort to prevent Australian shareholders even finding out about the measures in schedule 2 of this bill, let alone raising concerns. The Senate committee tasked with inquiring into this bill was given only three weeks to receive submissions from members of the public and issue a report. With the support of every single crossbench senator, the Senate voted to extend the committee's reporting date to 30 June 2021 so that mum-and-dad investors, self-funded retirees, large institutional investors and everyone else affected by this bill would have an opportunity to be heard. But, disgracefully, the Liberal-controlled Senate committee ignored the will of the Senate and tabled its report early, on 12 March. Not even the Treasury had time to make a submission to that inquiry. In fact, no government agency or department made any submission at all—not ASIC, which is opposed to the measures in schedule 2; not the ACCC, which is also opposed to them; and not the Attorney-General's Department. If the Treasury, the Attorney-General's Department, ASIC and the ACCC don't have time to prepare a submission, what hope do the mum-and-dad investors and self-funded retirees of Australia have?</p><p>Fortunately, the Senate has told the Morrison government that it will not let it ram these changes through the parliament. Yesterday, with the support of all Senate crossbenchers, except Senator Griff from Centre Alliance, the Senate supported Labor's motion to establish a new inquiry into this legislation. That inquiry will not be controlled by the reckless incompetence of the Liberal Party and will report on 30 June 2021. Though we have some concerns about the long-term effectiveness and desirability of virtual annual general meetings, Labor have told the government we're prepared to work with the government to ensure that the measures in schedule 1 can pass the parliament this week. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2021-03-17.127.6) that:
- > *the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.*
- In other words, they voted to keep the original question unchanged. The original question was that:
- > *That this bill be now read a [second time](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/bills-and-laws/making-a-law-in-the-australian-parliament/).*
- To give a bill a second reading is to agree with its main idea. After a second reading, they can then discuss the bill in greater detail.
- This vote occurred after the following amendment was proposed:
- > *That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:*
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- > *"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:*
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- > *(1) notes that the Government's measures in Schedule 2 of the bill would strip shareholders of their rights to be adequately informed, damage Australia's corporate governance regime, and allow company directors to get away with failing to disclose important information; and*
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- > *(2) further notes these measures could damage Australian investment and hurt Australian investors and retirees"*
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