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senate vote 2018-09-17#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2018-10-19 12:55:27
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Title
Bills — Treasury Laws Amendment (Black Economy Taskforce Measures No. 1) Bill 2018; in Committee- Treasury Laws Amendment (Black Economy Taskforce Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 - in Committee - Put the question
Description
<p class="speaker">Helen Polley</p><p>On behalf of Senator Cameron, I move the opposition amendment on sheet 8442:</p><p class="italic">  (1) Page 2 (after line 11), after clause 3, insert:</p>- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2018-09-17.21.1) to "put the question". This means that the debate will end and the matter at hand will be voted on immediately.
- Motions like these are put forward when one or more parties are tired of discussion and want to speed things along.
- One Senator - One Nation Party Senator [Brian Burston](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/nsw/brian_burston) - [crossed the floor](https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/crossing-the-floor.html) to vote "No" against the rest of his party.
<p class="italic">   4 Review of operation of amendments</p><p class="italic">  (1) The Minister must cause a review of the operation of the amendments made by Schedule 1 of this Act.</p><p class="italic">  (2) The review must start as soon as practicable after 2 years after Royal Assent.</p><p class="italic">  (3) The Minister must cause a written report about the review to be prepared.</p><p class="italic">  (4) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the day on which the report is given to the Minister.</p><p class="italic">  (5) The report is not a legislative instrument.</p><p>Labor is moving this amendment due to some relatively minor concerns about enforceability of measures in schedule 1. We believe a post-implementation review is warranted. Some stakeholders have raised concerns about defence provisions and strict liability for administrative penalties, including for people who may reasonably be in complete ignorance. Whereas criminal offences have overarching general defences for genuine mistakes, administrative civil penalties do not. However, in practice, the Commissioner of Taxation is only likely to impose civil penalties in genuinely gross cases. The Commissioner of Taxation has scope to remit penalties in cases of genuine mistakes.</p><p>Stakeholders have also raised concerns about the ATO's ability to enforce the provisions. The Treasury has said that the commissioner is presently undertaking live investigations into alleged sales suppression software. Neither Treasury nor the ATO have estimates on how prolific such software is. As Senator Cameron noted in his speech on this bill, the expansion of the TPRS and the rise of contractors and gig-economy work warrant greater inspection of the interaction effects of the measures of schedule 2.</p><p>As the amendment Labor is putting forward states, Labor would like a review of the operation of the amendments in this bill. The amendment requires:</p><p class="italic">(1) The Minister must cause a review of the operation of the amendments made by Schedule 1 of this Act.</p><p class="italic">(2) The review must start as soon as practicable after 2 years after Royal Assent.</p><p class="italic">(3) The Minister must cause a written report about the review to be prepared.</p><p class="italic">(4) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the day on which the report is given to the Minister.</p><p class="italic">(5) The report is not a legislative instrument.</p><p>This is a responsible amendment that strikes the right balance between evidence based policymaking transparency and ensuring that the measures before us are passed by parliament in a timely fashion.</p> <p class="speaker">Zed Seselja</p><p>I thank Senator Polley. The government doesn't believe that this amendment is necessary, though it will be supporting it to facilitate the passage of this bill and this very important legislative change. The amendment as outlined by Senator Polley would, of course, force a review after two years and cause the minister to cause a written report about the review to be prepared and tabled in each house of parliament within 15 sitting days of the report being given to the minister. We will be supporting the amendment, though, as I mentioned, we don't believe that this review is necessary as there is no legitimate reason to possess and use sales suppression software. However, we do want to see the important measures in this bill go through.</p><p>We thank the opposition for its support of the bill as a whole. In order to make sure that what is a very important bill is able to go through, with very important measures for dealing with the black economy and ensuring that we don't have people able to simply dodge taxes or, in some cases, use very sophisticated means to dodge taxes through sales suppression technology, we will be supporting this amendment. We look forward to the hopeful passage of this bill.</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Macdonald</p><p>I have a slightly different approach to this than the minister. I appreciate the minister's contribution to the debate. Can I congratulate Senator Polley on one of the more useful and positive speeches that I've heard from the opposition for some time. Senator Polley has a very sensible approach and I think that qualifies her for greater things and perhaps she should be part of Australia's delegation to some international forums, where she could make an equally positive contribution. But the idea of having a review after a couple of years, I think, is a very valid one because not always does legislation get it 100 per cent right. As I understand the amendment—and I want to ask some questions about that shortly—the review proposed has some merit in letting the parliament have a look at it again, having an independent group look at it and make recommendations.</p><p>It is pleasing to see support across the chamber for this approach to dealing with the black economy. Over my long years, I have seen examples of people trying to avoid paying taxation, people thinking they're clever in somehow avoiding tax by being part of the black economy. Whilst those who participate in it might consider themselves clever and, indeed, fortunate—and a lot of people, I suspect, would think that they're beating the system so therefore it has to be good—of course, what that means is that the rest of us who pay tax religiously, on time and without any sort of reduction, end up paying those additional taxes which the black economy deprives the country of. And while, like death, tax is inevitable, we do need taxes to actually make Australia work the way we want it to.</p><p>We'd never have a National Disability Insurance Scheme if we didn't have sufficient taxes to pay for that scheme. I'm conscious that when the Labor Party first thought of the NDIS, they had no idea of how it was going to be paid for and, fortunately, a change of government brought forward a government that not only endorsed the National Disability Insurance Scheme but actually started work for the first time on how the nation would pay for it and that's an important part of the process. It's alright having great ideas if there's no suggestion of how it's going to be paid for, and you see that all too often. Dare I say, with some political parties in this chamber, you see politicians making these grandiose promises that look good to the average voter. They might say, 'Yes, that sounds like what we want,' but, unfortunately, very often the ordinary voter doesn't understand that these promises, whilst they're fine, have to be paid for by someone and the only way that you can pay for them is by increasing taxes or by deferring payments to other very worthwhile projects. We have lots of examples of that. I know, in North Queensland, Mr Shorten breezes in there on a FIFO visit, announces some grandiose policy that is populist, will be immediately accepted and will get a headline in the local paper, but rarely does he ever say where the money is going to come from and, regrettably, some of the minor parties are very much like that as well. If you read some of the Greens political party policies—and you'd only do that if you were suffering insomnia—you'd see that whilst, superficially, they're not bad and they would attract some populist support, when you ask the question: 'Well, how are we going to pay for that?' Rarely, do you get a sensible answer. You do get an answer, which is, 'Tax everybody more.' But that's said by a party who will never be in government and will never have the responsibility of actually paying for the promises they make.</p><p>I must say, just diverting ever so slightly, up my way we have a former parliamentarian, Mr Palmer, in and around the north at the moment, and very often—like every five or six minutes on a TV ad in the local TV media in Townsville—he's talking about a couple of things, one of which is a zone taxation policy. I always say that repetition and plagiarism is a great form of complement, and I'm delighted that Mr Palmer is talking about a zone tax system after I've raised it quite a number of times in this chamber. I've made a very detailed submission to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer about upgrading the zone tax rebate scheme. But Mr Palmer has a proposal, which he does in a very clever 10-second grab in an advertisement. He wants a zone tax payment so that everybody who lives more than 200 kilometres from a capital city pays 20 per cent less tax. That's a great initiative. I have to say, lest my words be misconstrued at some time in the future, that I say that cynically and ironically. Twenty per cent less tax for people living, for example, in Noosa, a beach resort north of Brisbane in my home state. It was a very interesting thing. Of course, it's easy to say to all Australians who live more than 200 kilometres from a capital city, 'Your tax is going to be 20 per cent less.' It sounds like a great policy. Why wouldn't you vote for a man who was promising that? But then the question remains: who pays for it? Does that mean that people who live within the 200 kilometre radius that Mr Palmer is currently talking about pay 20 per cent more? Or do we cut back on our defence forces? Do we cut back on our border security? Do we limit the National Disability Insurance Scheme? Do we limit some of the extensive taxpayer contributions that have gone into developing northern Australia? Do we limit the contribution the Commonwealth government is making to the Rookwood Weir near Rockhampton? All of these questions come up. We have to ensure that the revenue is protected and that the revenue authorities get what is justly and lawfully theirs.</p><p>That brings me back to this bill, which is an attempt by the government, with the support of the Labor Party, I see, to try to address the black economy to make sure that all those that are paying tax or that should be paying tax do actually pay tax on their earnings. Having said that, I do want to ask Senator Polley about the idea of the review. I don't have the amendment in front of me, unfortunately, but the review, as I understand it, was to be by an independent group. I'm wondering if Senator Polley might be able to explain to the Senate what the Labor Party has in mind? Will it be one of the major finance firms? Will it be a departmental investigation? Will it be an independent investigation? Who will the people be? As I say, I think the idea is a good one, but I'm wondering what the implementation process of this review might be? Will submissions be sought from the Australian public and from particular stakeholders?</p><p>How will this actually happen? I repeat: I think it's a good idea, but I would just like a little bit more information on how Senator Polley suggests that the review might be conducted. Who will be consulted and what sort of professional or technical input will be made into the review?</p> <p class="speaker">Helen Polley</p><p>It's envisaged that there will be the normal sorts of processes that would be determined around a review like this. We haven't gone into the detail as to who would undertake that review, but we do see it as being advantageous to ensure that there is a review after a two-year period. I would expect that the government would carry out that review with somebody independent, as they normally do in ascertaining who would be best served to do that review.</p> <p class="speaker">Fraser Anning</p><p>I rise today to argue against the Treasury Laws Amendment (Black Economy Taskforce Measures No. 1) Bill 2018. This bill creates a new offence relating to so-called electronic sales suppression tools, by which the government means hardware and software which can be used to falsify electronic sales records. Specifically, these new offences are for the production, supply, possession or use of these devices.</p> <p class="speaker">Malarndirri McCarthy</p><p>Excuse me, Senator Anning. Just to remind you, we're actually on the amendment that's been moved.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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