Andrew Leigh

Tax Laws Amendment (Tougher Penalties for Country-by-Country Reporting) Bill 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MONDAY, 29 FEBRUARY 2016

Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (10:38):  I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Picture a glorious summer's evening at the SCG: the stadium lights are blazing, the dusk is settling in, and family and friends are abuzz at the prospect of a close finish to a match that is hanging in the balance. Suddenly a naked man runs out on the pitch, screaming in front of thousands. The security detail finally tackles him after a minute of cavorting.

Incidents such as these are not uncommon. One happened late last year at a Big Bash Twenty20 match, prompting Ricky Ponting in the commentary box to say: 'Let's hope that is a $6,000 fine at least. It's disgraceful; we don't like seeing that. Some people probably do, but it's a bad look for the game.' He was certainly right that the look was bad—for the streaker as well as for the game—but unfortunately Mr. Ponting's quite reasonable minimum fine threshold was above what the real streaker would receive. The penalty for invading the pitch at the Sydney Cricket Ground is $5,500.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

CANBERRA

MONDAY, 29 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Tax reform, multinational tax

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning everyone. Today I'll be introducing into Parliament a private member's bill to toughen the penalties on multinationals. I want to say a couple of words about how we got here. In 2013, Labor in office introduced the biggest ever package cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. The Coalition voted against it. We introduced changes that provided more tax transparency and we saw the first data released last December. The Coalition voted against those too. In the first half of this Parliamentary term, Labor put together a $7 billion multinational tax plan carefully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office and informed by the OECD. The Coalition are refusing to implement it. When the Coalition bring to Parliament their plans, they just have asterisks where the budget numbers should be. The Coalition are yet to bring a serious multinational tax plan to the Parliament. 

Last week we saw Labor in the Senate amend multinational tax laws to provide more transparency and therefore ensure more tax paid by multinationals. And today I will be introducing a private member's bill that will ramp up the penalties. Because right now, for a multinational that fails to lodge its country by country accounts, the fine is $5400. To a billion dollar company, that represents 0.00054 per cent of their revenue. It's a slap on the wrist when we need a serious penalty. When we say to a company ‘obey the law or pay the fine’, we don't want them to chuckle out the side of their mouth and just go off and pay the fine. My private member's bill will increase the penalties on multinationals 50-fold from $5400 to $270,000 plus triggering an audit if firms don't comply. Australians have had enough from firms who don't play by the rules. Labor is the only party who is serious about tightening rules on multinational tax.

Yet again, Labor is leading the debate on tax. The chances of Malcolm Turnbull coming up with a fair, pro-growth tax plan are like the chances of Godot turning up midway through a Samuel Beckett play. Malcolm Turnbull is simply incapable of providing the tax leadership and the economic leadership that he promised before he got rid of Tony Abbott. Labor is serious about tax, we have a hundred billion dollars of carefully costed savings plans on the table and we're providing the economic leadership that Malcolm Turnbull promised but has failed to deliver. Happy to take questions.

UP, DOWN; RICH, POOR: IT’S THE TURNBULL HOKEY-POKEY

Having seen how well running two contradictory scare campaigns worked out yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull has decided to add even more confusion to his Government’s chaotic position on negative gearing.  

Just as Malcolm Turnbull argues Labor’s negative gearing policy can simultaneously drive prices up and down, apparently it can be both an attack on the wealthy and a gift for them all at once.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC NEWSRADIO

THURSDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Lowest wage growth on record under the Coalition Government’s economic management; Tax reform

MARIUS BENSON:  Andrew Leigh, good morning.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Good morning, Marius. How are you?

BENSON: I'm well. Do you share that view – I guess it's not a view, it is an Australian Bureau of Statistics fact – that we are getting poorer?

LEIGH: It’s a real concern, Marius. I think the reason this has come about is people have been focussing on the headline GDP number for many years. But GDP doesn't account for population growth. We are one of the fastest-growing countries in the OECD in terms of population. When you take that into account, you can look at something like Net National Disposable Income per person and that has actually fallen 3.5 per cent since the Coalition came to office. That is one of the best measures of living standards that we have.

MORE TRANSPARENCY, SOONER FOR BIG FIRMS THANKS TO LABOR 

The Senate has today passed Labor amendments that will give the Australian Tax Office access to information about big companies’ financial affairs sooner, and improve public transparency.

The Common Reporting Standard is an important global agreement for cracking down on multinational tax avoidance. It allows tax authorities to automatically exchange information about the contents of company and individual bank accounts.

Until now, multinational companies and wealthy individuals have often been able to avoid paying tax in one country simply by sending their money offshore to another jurisdiction so that tax authorities cannot see it.

Team Leigh is looking for a Media Adviser

The person who handles my media is moving on, so I’m inviting applications for a Canberra-based media adviser who can assist me with publicly communicating on issues of economic policy.

I have a pretty broad range of ways through which I engage on policy issues - from books to speeches to interviews to op-eds to tweets.

Along with my other four staff, my media adviser helps draft, coordinate, and project those ideas. This involves drafting media releases, speeches and op-eds, chatting with journalists, and working in with the rest of the Labor team. The hours tend to exceed 40 hours a week, and can be unpredictable - for which there's an overtime allowance.

TURNBULL KEEPS DIGGING ON SCARE CAMPAIGN

 Joint Media Release with Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen

“When you’re in a tax hole, stop digging” – Malcolm Turnbull, Question Time, 23 February 2016.

Mr Turnbull might want to take his own advice. His Government is split wide open on tax and its ‘scare campaign’ against Labor’s policy.

Malcolm Turnbull’s not so scary campaign that Labor’s policy will “crash housing prices” has been torpedoed by the Assistant Treasurer.

The Assistant Treasurer said on Channel 7’s Sunrise this morning:

“The Labor Party has a very irresponsible campaign, they have got a policy that will increase the cost of housing for all Australians, for those people who own a home and for those people who would like to get into the housing market through their negative gearing policy.”

HINT FOR SCOTT MORRISON: REAL TAX PLANS COME WITH REVENUE

It is little wonder Scott Morrison can’t balance the Budget when he keeps announcing tax ‘crackdowns’ that raise no revenue.

The Treasurer’s announcement that the Foreign Investment Review Board will now consider tax issues as part of its national interest assessment process is another attempt to look tough on multinational tax.

But just like his much trumpeted multinational tax bill – which had asterisk where there should have been revenue figures – the Treasurer will not say whether this move will return a single extra dollar to the Australian community.

LABOR APPLAUDS MORRISON’S STRONG ANTI-UNICORN TRAFFICKING STANCE 

After five and half months in the job, Treasurer Scott Morrison has finally made a clear and emphatic policy commitment: there will be no sale of unicorns on his watch.

While some may find the Treasurer’s hard line on mythical creatures unusual, it is entirely consistent with this Liberal Government’s fantasy approach to budgeting.

After all, these are the people who promised they could deliver surplus budgets every year without cutting spending or raising new taxes.   

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

SYDNEY

WEDNESDAY, 17 FEBRUARY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s positive plans for the sharing economy; negative gearing; GST; retirement of WA Labor MPs; population growth.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks very much to Sam and the COMMUNE team for having us here, and to Ruby from SheSays for giving us some insights into the important work that they are doing to make sure that the innovative start-up economy includes as many women as possible. Labor believes that the sharing economy offers great potential for tackling some of our big challenges, including creating more jobs and dealing with issues like congestion and housing affordability. That is why we engaged in extensive consultations last year, talking to Australians about the principles that should guide the sharing economy. Labor's principles include the notion that sharing economy firms should play by the rules, and should pay their fair share of tax. Labor understands that the sharing economy offers great potential for creating new jobs, but that we have got to be careful too that the new technologies do not leave people behind. It is only Labor that will ensure that an innovative economy protects workers as well as making sure capital owners do well. 

Just before handing over to Tanya, I want to make a couple of comments about Scott Morrison's address to the National Press Club today. We know that the Abbott-Turnbull Government has lost more ministers that it has had positive tax ideas; 14 more to be exact. All signs are pointing to Scott Morrison's address to the Press Club being just another Joe Hockey-style lecture on Australians living beyond their means. Here are a few facts that Scott Morrison probably won't share with the Australian people when he is at the Press Club: 80 per cent of his return to surplus by 2021 is based on bracket creep. He is unlikely to say that half of the benefits of negative gearing go to the top tenth, or that two-thirds of the benefits of the capital gains tax go to the top tenth. I'd be pretty surprised if Scott Morrison acknowledges that inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high, and that growth has been downgraded successively since the Abbott-Turnbull Government came to office. Australia needs the economic leadership that Malcolm Turnbull promised when he toppled Tony Abbott, but so far we've seen precious little of it. I'll hand over now to Tanya.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Thanks everyone, and thanks particularly to Sam for having us here today. When I speak to the young people who are here today, they are doing jobs I couldn't have imagined ten years ago. The one thing we know for certain is that in ten years’ time or twenty years’ time, our young people will be doing jobs we can’t imagine today. That is why it is so very important that we get a few of our basics right. Of course we have to get the principles around the sharing economy right, as Andrew has said. We need to get investment in school education right, because we know that the kids who are going to pre-school now, and the kids who are starting in primary school, for them coding will be as important as literacy and numeracy. We also need to get right our National Broadband Network. We’ve got a Prime Minister who has had one job as Communications Minister, and that was getting the NBN right. Instead we have got a second-rate NBN that is slower and more expensive than what Labor proposed. We are very focussed on making sure our kids are prepared for the jobs of the future through our school education system, and that the biggest piece of infrastructure that we will build as a nation in coming years is not the second-rate slower and more expensive NBN that Malcolm Turnbull has promised.