Andrew Leigh

Joint media release with

The Hon Jim Chalmers MP
Treasurer

The Hon Stephen Jones MP
Assistant Treasurer
Minister for Financial Services

ACCC report into digital platform services

The Albanese Government welcomes the release of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) latest report into digital platform services.

The inquiry has identified significant consumer and competition issues across a range of digital platform services including search engines, social media, online private messaging, app stores, online retail marketplaces and digital advertising.

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP 
ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY

MEDIA RELEASE

Beneficial ownership register - consultation

The Albanese Government has opened consultation on the design features for the first phase of a publicly available beneficial ownership register. We announced we would implement the register as part of our commitment to ensuring multinationals pay their fair share of tax.

A beneficial owner is a person who ultimately owns or controls an entity, legal vehicle, or asset. Beneficial owners are not always the legal owners of the relevant entity, vehicle, or asset.

A public beneficial ownership register is intended to increase transparency of beneficial ownership in Australia and discourage the use of complex structures that avoid legal requirements and obscure tax liabilities. It seeks to support stronger regulatory and law enforcement responses to tax and financial crime, assist foreign investment applications, and facilitate the enforcement of sanctions.

In this consultation on the first phase of the reform, the Government would welcome views on a proposal to require specified unlisted entities regulated under the Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act) to maintain beneficial ownership registers. It also seeks comments on proposed amendments to the substantial holding notice and tracing notice regimes in the Corporations Act.

In future phases, the Government intends to consult on approaches to disclosure of beneficial ownership held through other legal vehicles, such as trusts, and the centralisation of information in a single public registry.

Implementation of a beneficial ownership register would broadly align Australia with international approaches to transparency of beneficial ownership information. Currently, Australia is not ranked highly against international benchmarks for the collection and disclosure of beneficial ownership information, including those set out by the Financial Action Task Force.

Ensuring everyone pays their fair share of tax in Australia will help to fund vital services, repair the Budget, and level the playing field for Australian businesses.

We welcome contributions from the community. Submissions close on 16 December 2022.

To access the discussion papers or lodge a submission, visit the Treasury website.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
SENATE COURTYARD, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
THURSDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2022

TOPICS: Multinational tax, ATO corporate tax transparency report, $5 note, energy prices, renewables, industrial relations laws

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY DR ANDREW LEIGH: Thanks very much for coming along. My name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. Well, today we had the release of the Australian Tax Office’s Corporate Transparency Report. This is a report that is brought into the public domain as a result of laws passed under the Gillard Government, to the cries and objections from the Liberals at the time. It shows for 2,468 corporations, their tax that they've paid, their total income and their taxable income. It's really important that all firms pay their fair share of tax. And the Corporate Transparency Report is a Labor initiative that is delivering to Australians more information about tax paid. This is for the year 2020-2021. So it's not yesterday's information, but it is critical to corporate tax transparency.

Labor is strongly committed to making sure that all firms pay their fair share of tax. The recent budget, we funded the ATO's Tax Avoidance Task Force to the tune of $1.1 billion over the next four years to ensure that multinational firms don't get a leg up on their local competitors simply because they're exploiting unfair tax loopholes. We announced we'd be closing down a number of tax loopholes that have been exploited by multinationals. Multinationals will no longer be able to deduct as much debt as a result of our changes to the thin capitalisation regime. We've made changes to the ability of multinationals to use royalty payments inappropriately to minimise their tax bill. And we're expanding transparency for large corporations in Australia. For significant global entities - you can think of these as firms with revenue over a billion dollars - we're requiring country by country reporting detailed tax information, ensuring those firms are paying their fair share. For public companies, listed and unlisted, we'll require the number of their subsidiaries and the countries in which they're located. Again, a measure to ensure that we're not seeing taxes that should be paid in Australia, leaking away to low or no tax jurisdictions. Any firm that's tendering for a government tender worth more than $200,000 will have to disclose its country of tax domicile.

The Albanese government is strongly committed to a level playing field on tax, ensuring that firms are competing based on serving their customers well, being innovative and providing a good workplaces for their employees. The last thing we want is an economy in which firms are competing based on who's got the best tax loophole. That doesn't provide a stronger economy. That's not the foundation for the productivity growth that we know is vital. Very happy to take questions on the report or other economic issues.

The Herald Sun, Wednesday 2 November 2022

A generation ago, rules in some states governed when bakers could bake their bread. Many families had to do their grocery shopping in a mad rush on Saturday morning before stores closed for the weekend. Energy markets were run by inefficient monopolies, and the electricity grid was much less joined up across states than it is now.

The result was less competition and higher prices.

That’s why thirty years ago this month, then Prime Minister Paul Keating asked Fred Hilmer to lead a reform process that became National Competition Policy.

As Keating put it, ‘We brought a new word to the Labor lexicon – competition… we were tired of paying twice as much as we should be paying for cars, for telephones, for clothing, for electricity. By cutting tariffs and by lifting domestic competition, we created a low price structure, thereby allowing people’s wages to go further.’

To think of a part of Australia where bakers could not bake at particular times is to imagine somewhere that feels deeply foreign. It’s like Doctor Who, but with baking regulations instead of aliens.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY AFTERNOON AGENDA
TUESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2022

TOPICS: Cost of living, Budget, energy prices, industrial relations laws, competition, banning unfair contract terms

KIERAN GILBERT (HOST): Let's bring in Andrew Leigh, he is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. A huge day for many families, those with mortgages, likely a few hundred dollars a month for many.

DR ANDREW LEIGH, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES AND TREASURY: It's a big challenge, Kieran. And we know that the independent Reserve Bank is making its decisions to try and curb inflation, because if inflation gets out of control, that's an even worse hit to the economy and to people's living standards. But the government is aware of the cost of living pressures facing families, which is why in last week's budget, Jim Chalmers focused on the supply side measures. Cheaper childcare, expanding the housing supply, cheaper medicines, fee free TAFE places.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
SENATE COURTYARD, PARLIAMENT HOUSE
SATURDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: Labor’s plans to make childcare, medicines and housing more affordable, Budget, cost of living, Labor’s plans to address power prices

ANDREW LEIGH, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury: Good morning everyone, my name is Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury.

Labor knows that Australian families are doing it tough right now. This week we had the inflation figure come down at 7.3 percent for the year. Australians are feeling inflation in their regular balancing the household books. Labor knows inflation is a huge challenge and that was why tackling inflation was a central theme of the Budget that Jim Chalmers brought down this week. If you’re a family planning to have kids then our cheaper childcare reforms are taking the pressure of childcare costs for 1.26 million families, 96 percent of families with children in care. If you’re thinking about buying a home, then our Housing Australia Future Fund is aimed at producing some 40,000 social and affordable homes, putting downward pressure on house prices. If you’re looking at buying a car, we’re reducing the taxes on electric vehicles. If you’re looking at getting an education, then hundreds of thousands of fee-free TAFE places will take the pressure off. And if you’re sick, then our reforms to reduce the cost of medicines, are again, helping Australians with cost of living pressures. Labor recognises that cost of living is a huge issue for many Australian households.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC CANBERRA MORNINGS WITH ADAM SHIRLEY
WEDNESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: BUDGET 2022, INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING IN THE ACT.

ADAM SHIRLEY (HOST): One man who had a very clear line of sight on a lot of the Federal Government’s decisions, spends, cutbacks and ultimately final Federal Budget for this year is Dr Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury. He’s also the federal member for Fenner here in the ACT. Dr Leigh, thanks for your time today.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARITIES, AND TREASRY ANDREW LEIGH: Real pleasure, Adam. I’m still reeling over this Dr Who decision.

SHIRLEY: Devastating.

LEIGH: Like you, I grew up on Tom Baker and the like, and the idea of it not being part of the ABC and the BBC is very strange.

SHIRLEY: Much like a Federal Budget perhaps – tough decisions have to be made. I mean, you probably won’t talk to us about the things you wish your colleagues, including Finance Minister Katy Gallagher had stumped up for but didn’t. What is your read of what the ACT and broadly Australia will do out of this?

LEIGH: Well, for the ACT, you’ll remember the Coalition budget earlier this year where we got less than a fifth of our fair share of infrastructure spending. That changed last night with a fair share of infrastructure spending going to the ACT - $86 million for light rail, the Scrivener Dam upgrades $38 million, $15 million for the AIS arena, $5 million for the Garden City cycle route, $5 million for the Gorman House Arts Centre, and a range of other smaller projects.

So with Katy Gallagher in the Finance portfolio the ACT is definitely not forgotten and is central to what we’re envisaging for revitalizing the country. And also the investment in ongoing public service jobs, scaling back on those unnecessary consultants and contractors, investing more in stable, full-time public service jobs after a decade of cutbacks in the public service which saw a tenth of the public service go.

SHIRLEY: So a couple of listeners have raised the Canberra Hospital, Woden CIT, separate to, I think – what is it – the hostel at Woden as well. Did you as a government consider or look at better funding for a hospital and health system which you know is desperately overstretched?

LEIGH: We’re certainly working closely with the ACT government on their priorities, and that was why we invested in that youth foyer at the Woden CIT campus and why we’re also investing in active engagement through the University of Canberra’s sports hub precinct.

SHIRLEY: But health and the hospital. I mean, you know any family or individual knows that the real difficulties in getting good care on time in the ACT right now.

LEIGH: Absolutely. So the budget includes investments for a Medicare urgent care clinic on the south side. And that will aim to take pressure off Canberra’s emergency departments. And we’re working very closely with the ACT Government to try and get down those waiting times.

You know, I’m a dad, I’ve spent time sitting in emergency rooms with kids. It’s not fun. We’ve got to make sure that we do a better job in bringing down those waiting times and providing that important care.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

THE HON DR ANDREW LEIGH MP 
MEMBER FOR FENNER

DAVID SMITH MP
MEMBER FOR BEAN

ALICIA PAYNE MP
MEMBER FOR CANBERRA

MEDIA RELEASE

 LABOR’S BUDGET DELIVERS ON INVESTMENTS TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE FOR CANBERRA

TUESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2022

The Albanese Labor Government’s first Budget delivers on our election commitments and invests in local infrastructure upgrades that will see our city grow.

After a decade of disdain for the National Capital from the former Liberal/National Government, we will ensure that the ACT is not ignored when it comes to infrastructure investments that create jobs, boost our economy and ensure that our city flourishes into the future.

The Federal Budget includes $86 million in funding for Stage 2A of the Light Rail Project to ensure that Canberrans on the Southside get the same transport benefits as those who use the tram between Civic and Gungahlin.

The Government will also provide funding to deliver the National Security Office Precinct in Barton.

This project will be a permanent solution to the critical accommodation and capability requirements of several national security and other Commonwealth agencies, and is expected to be utilised by the Office of National Intelligence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

These major city-shaping investments are in addition to the nearly $39 million that we committed to deliver during the Federal Election, including:

• $15 million to upgrade and reopen the AIS Arena so that Canberrans have access to the facilities they deserve for sports, community events and concerts
• $10 million to build a Youth Foyer at the Woden CIT campus to deliver student accommodation and wraparound services for young people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness
• $3.2 million to improve the health of Canberra’s waterways through revegetation, weed control and water flow management efforts across the Ginninderra, Molonglo and southern ACT Catchments
• $5 million to improve cycling connections on the Northbourne Avenue corridor through the inner-north suburbs of Canberra through the construction of a new Garden City Cycle Route.
• $5 million to revitalise Canberra’s beloved Gorman House Arts Centre to support our vibrant arts community
• $750,000 to undertake a scoping study to investigate the options to give the University of Canberra Capitals WNBL team a permanent home stadium

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2GB MONEY NEWS WITH LUKE GRANT
THURSDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2022

SUBJECTS: BUDGET, STAGE THREE, MULTINATIONAL TAX MINIMISATION, APEC FINANCE MINISTERS’ MEETING, EMPLOYMENT RATE

LUKE GRANT: But still five days to go until the budget is delivered and a whole lot of promises still to come. Something that was outlined as part of the election commitments was the move to limit tax avoidance by multinational companies. One of those government members driving that campaign is Andrew Leigh, who is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, and I'm delighted to say he's on the line. Now, before we get to budget matters, I saw a piece he wrote about multinationals paying their fair share of corporate tax in Australia. And I want to get to that as well, but there's so much to talk about, Andrew. But employment, according to the ABS, with employment increasing slightly by around 1000 people, the number of unemployed increasing by about 9000 people. This is from their statement today, the unemployment rate rose by less than 0.1% remained at 3.5 in a rounded term. Do you reckon we've reached the point where the rate now might head the other way? What's your feeling about this?

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR COMPETITION, CHARIRTIES, AND TREASURY DR ANDREW LEIGH: Well, I'm really hopeful we're going to keep the unemployment rate low. Because full employment really does help to drive wage growth and to ensure that people get jobs who wouldn't have otherwise get a look in. We know that it's only in full employment that people who have unconventional CVs, who are minorities, finally get a chance to get jobs. So we need to spread the benefits of economic growth and low unemployment is a great way of doing that. It's why full employment was such a big priority at our Jobs and Skills Summit that we held recently. Because Labor knows how much it matters for Australians.