Andrew Leigh

Treasury Laws Amendment (Making Multinationals Pay Their Fair Share—Integrity And Transparency) Bill 2023

Second Reading, Summing up speech

Wednesday 9th August 2023

Dr Leigh (Fenner—Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister for Employment):

First, I want to thank those members who've contributed to this debate. The Australian government went to the 2022 election with commitments to tighten tax integrity and to play a meaningful part in driving international tax reforms. We made that commitment more than one year ago, and the timelines we set were to allow for meaningful consultation with affected stakeholders. That consultation has indeed taken place.

Through the exposure draft, Treasury has conducted 10 meetings with interested stakeholders, ranging from peak groups to individual firms. Since the bill was introduced, Treasury has carried out seven more consultation meetings, again, with a range of peak groups and investors. The exposure draft received 54 written submissions, and those submissions that asked to be made public have been published on the Treasury website.

More than a year on from the election, I stand here to speak in favour of a government that seeks to implement its election commitment. The measures we brought to parliament have benefited from the guidance and input of industry and civil society, but we bring these amendments to the parliament with a clear eye to the main game. For too long, multinational profit shifting has left a hole in our corporate tax revenue. For too long, artificial debt deduction mechanisms have been used and misused to allow revenue to drain away to low- or no-tax jurisdictions. When that happens, households and businesses pay more, and that's why this bill the government brings to the House is a pro-business measure.

As the member for Chisholm so articulately put it, this is about creating a level playing field across all Australian businesses. If you are a local small business just trying to make payroll, you're not thinking about how you're going to restructure your arrangements to set up a high-interest loan coming out of the Caymans so you can reduce your tax bill. If you're a regular mum-and-dad business just trying to get by, what you ask is to be placed on a level playing field with other firms. Multinational tax is complicated, but the very principles at stake in this bill are simple: do we want multinationals to pay their fair share, or do we want to allow the status quo to continue?

We have given industry over a year to prepare for these changes. The consultations have helped ensure our integrity measures are properly targeted to tighten loopholes that can be used to allow the strategic erosion of our tax base. We don't want to affect legitimate commercial arrangements. Our commitment is to shift the norms, not maintain the status quo, and that reflects the consensus embodied in the OECD/G20 process. That inclusive framework on base erosion and profit shifting has seen over 140 countries and jurisdictions collaborate on the implementation of measures to tackle tax avoidance to improve the coherence of international tax rules and to ensure a more transparent tax environment. It brings an end to the notion that we should just allow a race to the bottom in corporate taxation, with a global 15 per cent minimum floor on corporate taxation.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA WITH TOM CONNELL
FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST 2023

SUBJECTS: ANZ-Suncorp merger, Competition policy, Cost of living

TOM CONNELL (HOST): Joining me live now is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Employment, Andrew Leigh, thanks for your time.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, COMPETITION, CHARITIES, AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Pleasure, Tom.

CONNELL: So blocking the move, what did you make of that?

LEIGH: Well, the ACCC has its independent job to do and the government certainly won’t be commenting on the specifics of the decision today. The parties have the option to appeal to the Australian Competition Tribunal or to the Federal Court. All we would do is thank the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for their work in assessing this proposed merger.

More than one billion reasons to vote Yes for a Voice

The Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2023

Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome are pretty old civilisations, but they don’t have a patch on Australia’s First Peoples. By the time those civilisations were getting started, Indigenous people had been on this continent for tens of thousands of years.

Indigenous people refer to “everywhen” to describe the connections between past, present and future. And indeed, it’s hard to get your head around the concept of a people who have been here for more than 60 millennia.

What does 60,000 years mean? If every generation lasts 30 years, this means that two thousand generations of Indigenous people have dwelt on this continent.

CHARITIES COMMISSION ADVISORY BOARD APPOINTED

The Government is pleased to announce eight appointments to the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits (ACNC) Advisory Board.

The ACNC Advisory Board supports and advises the ACNC Commissioner.

Late last year, the Government sought applications from members of the charity sector to join the ACNC Advisory Board.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA WITH TOM CONNELL
WEDNESDAY, 26 JULY 2023

SUBJECTS: Inflation figures, Energy bill relief, Transition to renewables, Increasing housing supply.

TOM CONNELL (HOST): Joining me now for more on this is Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for the Treasury. Thank you very much for your time here in the studio, of course.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, COMPETITION, CHARITIES, AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Pleasure, Tom.

CONNELL: Inflation, 0.8 per cent for the quarter is a big figure here, it's barely above the target band, if it's annualised. Is the case for another rate hike greatly diminished after that figure?

LEIGH: Well, that'll be entirely up to the Reserve Bank and its board, Tom, but it’s certainly welcome news for households. Remember the peak of inflation was in the Coalition's last quarter in office. We had that quarterly figure of 2.1 per cent inflation. This figure of 0.8 per cent is less than half of that figure. So, warmly welcomed. Still annualised over the year, we're at 6 per cent, a little down from the 7.8 per cent we were at, but yet to come within the target band. As a government, we're focused on what we can do. Cheaper energy, cheaper childcare, ensuring we're providing that rental relief to households and cheaper medicines. Not only the reforms from January but also the reforms that will come into effect in September that will allow people to get two months supply in one go.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST WITH HAMISH MACDONALD
TUESDAY, 25 JULY 2023

SUBJECTS: Cost of living, Appointment of Chris Barrett to the Productivity Commission, Randomised trials and employment services system, Review into offshore processing.

HAMISH MACDONALD (HOST): The economic storm facing Australia might be gathering pace, but right now, the budget bottom line is looking better than ever. Yesterday, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, revealed the surplus has gone down since the May budget - sorry, gone up to $20 billion. But despite housing being a major problem in the community and government support payments below that of the poverty line, it's unlikely that any of that money will be used to ease the cost of living pressures. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Employment and joins the program now. Good morning to you.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, COMPETITION, CHARITIES, AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, Hamish.

Monopoly makes life harder for central banks

The Australian, 18 July 2023

The job of the Reserve Bank is never easy, but it is especially challenging at times when inflation is outside the target band. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and major problems with vital supply chains are undoubtably key drivers of Australia's inflation problem.

Nonetheless, two new pieces of research suggest that a lack of competition may impede the transmission of monetary policy - effectively making life harder for central bankers. Both were published in May in the American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.

The first study, by Romain Duval, Davide Furceri, Raphael Lee and Marina M. Tavares, considers the effect of mark-ups. Mark-ups are the gap between cost and price. In a highly competitive market, mark-ups tend to be small. When monopolies rule, mark-ups are massive. Across many advanced countries, mark-ups have risen over recent decades.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE BREAKFAST WITH CRAIG ZONCA AND LORETTA RYAN
WEDNESDAY, 12 JULY 2023

SUBJECTS: Charity town halls, Government’s goal to double philanthropy, Speech to Australian Economists Conference, Bank branch closures.

CRAIG ZONCA (HOST): The Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh is joining us. Guess what, he has literally just run into the studio this morning. In your running gear, Andrew Leigh, good morning to you.

ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, COMPETITION, CHARITIES, AND TREASURY ANDREW LEIGH: Good morning, great to be with you.

LORETTA RYAN (HOST): Where have you run to and from?

LEIGH: Just along the beautiful South Bank. I’ve been going for a run with a bloke called Wayne Spies. Wayne just broke the masters world record for a race called Comrades, which is an 87‑kilometre race in South Africa, and he's currently training to take a shot at the over 50 marathon world record.

RYAN: Gosh.

LEIGH: Amazingly quick runner. We were running at Andrew pace, not Wayne pace.

ZONCA: And is that what you do, if you're visiting a particular city, will you go for a run to experience early mornings, say like you have in Brisbane today?

CHARITY SECTOR TOWN HALL MEETINGS

This week, I will hold a series of town hall meetings across Australia to meet with charity sector representatives.

The Australian Government values the expertise and the contributions of the charity and non-profit sector, which constitutes almost one-tenth of the economy, and over one-tenth of employment. We know how vital Australian charities are in building stronger, fairer communities.

IMPROVING INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN THE CHARITY SECTOR

The Albanese Government takes the integrity of the charity sector seriously and is acting to provide the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) with additional powers and resources.

Presently, secrecy provisions prevent the ACNC from disclosing whether it is investigating alleged misconduct by a charity, the outcomes of investigations, and/or the reasons for revoking the registration of a charity. This limits the ability of the public and charities to learn from ACNC regulatory activities.