Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens also want to put on record that we'll be supporting this amendment today. We introduced this exact same amendment two years ago. At the time we worked with the Labor Party and the crossbench to try and remove grandfathering exemptions for some of the most wealthy individuals and biggest companies in this country from providing their financial reports to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Transparency should be in our genes. We can't fix a system until we actually see the problem. There is no excuse from a public policy point of view. I'm glad that Senator Patrick has put the same question to Senator Seselja that he put to Senator Hume: what is the public policy purpose of providing an exemption from providing accounts so that they can be publicly scrutinised? I haven't seen a good response to that question. I think the Australian public are watching this debate and will continue to watch this debate and look out for your policy response on this.

I wanted to take a point that Senator Seselja made, because it is a good point. This chamber, indeed this parliament, has worked on tax transparency. We have passed some really important legislation, working together, across party lines. Senator Hume was very keen to speak in detail about the multinational tax avoidance law on Monday. She was filibustering out the debate, but nevertheless it was a very good point that she made and I was glad she made it. We have done some really good stuff together in this chamber. The fact that this anomaly sits there and has not been tackled by this chamber stands out like Chopper Read at a Country Women's Association morning tea. The more good work we do, the more it looks like a stupid anomaly that we haven't actually removed this.