Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025

Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (18:53): I'm happy to rise in the House today to talk about the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025. I move the amendment circulated in my name: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that: (1) the bill seeks to extend two successful Coalition policies; (2) the Government's policies have seen energy prices increase by $1,300 more than promised and it is now extending Coalition policy to ensure energy prices don't increase even further; (3) the Government has only reluctantly decided to support business by extending the instant asset write-off under pressure from the Coalition ahead of the last election; (4) this bill seeks to provide less frequent assessments of ASIC and APRA; (5) thousands of Australians have lost over $1 billion in superannuation due to alleged misconduct by First Guardian and Shield; (6) ASIC has been accused of major failures in responding to this crisis which the Government has been silent about; (7) the Government must explain to the thousands of victims why it is seeking to reduce accountability and transparency for ASIC at this time; and (8) this bill seeks to clean up a range of the Government's mistakes including the application of GST to disability services".

Comprising seven schedules and impacting at least eight portfolios, it's not often that this parliament sees such a large bill that simultaneously demonstrates the coalition's competence and Labor's laziness. But that's what we have in this omnibus bill before the House today. I take the opportunity to look at a few of the schedules.

If you look at two in particular, they are very close to copy and paste. One is a complete copy and paste and an extension of a former coalition measure and the other one is almost a copy and paste. It builds on a coalition measure.

The first is an extension of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2019. This is all about the energy market, and we know why this government has chosen to extend a coalition measure—because, under the last term of the coalition government, we saw energy prices come down. They came down by about eight per cent for households, 10 per cent for businesses and 12 per cent for industry.

We had a proven track record of getting energy prices down. That's what a coalition does. Then in came the Albanese Labor government.

The reason I'm trying hard not to laugh is that they promised the Australian people a $275 reduction in household power bills—$275 down was their promise. In fact, power bills have gone up by $1,300. Well, if you look at the coalition's record in its last term—on average, let's say we got prices down by 10 per cent.

Over the Albanese government's first term, they got prices up for gas by 38 per cent and up for electricity by 39 per cent. It is no wonder, therefore, that within this omnibus bill you have a schedule which basically extends a coalition measure that ensured that any savings made by energy retailers would be passed through to consumers—a measure that ensured that energy generators would not be able to adversely bid into the system, as in play the system to the adverse impact of consumers, and that ensured that they would have to be signing up to financial contracts.

This was all set up by the coalition government to ensure it was putting downward pressure on electricity prices. It was one of the many schemes that helped the coalition deliver. It goes to coalition competence, but the Labor government has defied the coalition's practice, and they have seen prices go through the roof.

Indeed, only recently, we saw the 2035 emissions reduction targets come out from this government, but they cannot tell the Australian people how much it's going to cost. They don't know how they're going to get there or how much it will cost. What we do know from the market operator and every other energy market expert in the country is that prices are going to continue to rise.

This government has no answers—it has no solutions whatsoever—which is why, in this omnibus bill, as a demonstration of coalition competence and Labor laziness, they have decided, in schedule 6, to extend that legislation. That legislation was famously known in this chamber as the 'big stick legislation'. The Labor opposition at the time were very excited about the big stick legislation, I have to say.

They were determined to tell the Australian people that the big stick legislation was bad. I'll let you in on a bit of history here. The now climate change and energy minister—the very minister who wants to extend this measure—said of this measure, 'The Liberals' silly big-stick divestment policy will drive up electricity prices even further.' And now the minister of the day says, 'Actually the coalition had it right after all.' I remind you that this is the now Labor climate change and energy minister who was saying, about the very measure that today he wants this House to pass, 'this ridiculous policy'—the very one he has in front of the House now—'this Venezuelan-style intervention, this intervention in the economy which would chill investment'.

This is what he said. The now health minister, another frontbencher, said of this very measure: This is a stunt by a government that has no energy plan. The now housing minister, another frontbencher, said: It is a silly grab bag of things that don't amount to a cohesive policy … And the now assistant minister for immigration said of the measure that they want to put through today it 'would have to be the worst, shallowest, most ill-conceived piece of legislation that I have seen in the parliament in my time as a member'.

Yet here they are today. This goes to the fact that the coalition was competent, because everything the government is doing is seeing prices go up for energy. There's one measure in their kitbag that the coalition had introduced which is driving the pressure downwards, and that's the one they bring forward, trying to hide it amidst all these other measures within the omnibus.

If I can go to another measure, it's schedule 7. This one is the instant asset write-off. Again, it goes to the competence of the former coalition government.

The Liberals and the Nationals are the only side of politics who actually care about small business and recognise the importance of cash flow and the importance of encouraging the bringing forward of investment, because that will enable businesses to grow. But they can't do that too easily, which is why the instant asset write-offs were created in the first place by the coalition.

And now we have the Labor government stealing the policy—which we're very happy about, by the way. That's fine. The more the Labor government steals coalition policy, the better it is for the Australian people.

Again, it goes to coalition competence versus Labor laziness. But we do say we like instant asset write-offs. The only reason they actually were doing this for this term of government anyway is the fact that the coalition had shamed them into it.

At the end of the last term of government, the coalition came out with a far stronger instant asset write-off policy to what's before the House today. This shamed the Albanese government, because they'd totally forgotten, as they always do, about small business. But it shamed them, on the eve of the election, to come forward with their own instant asset write-off.

While it is nowhere near as good as what the coalition had put up, of course, it is a demonstration of coalition competence and the lazy Labor approach, and we support the instant asset write-offs, as you would expect from a coalition of Liberals and Nationals who understand the importance of small business and the importance of the economy. But then there are other schedules.

I won't run through them all, but, if you look at schedule 3, this is quite a disturbing one. It is suggesting that the government wants to weaken the accountability of both ASIC and APRA. This is most disturbing because, basically, again, due to the competence of the coalition government, you have an authority that assesses these two important regulators to see if they're doing the job as expected.

You would think that, of all times, now would be the time where the Labor government would ensure that these bodies are accountable. That's because of the effect of the likes of First Guardian Master Fund and Shield Master Fund, where you have over $1 billion being lost by hardworking, everyday Australians from their savings. This government has shown itself, again, to be completely lazy.

They're not actively trying to ensure that they are fixing the problems here. They are not looking into ASIC to make sure that this does not happen again. Indeed, in the October 2022-23 budget, Labor promised to review the regulatory framework for managed investment schemes, like those of First Guardian and Shield.

That review was due over a year ago. No findings have been released. Australians have lost their savings; no findings have been released from that review.

Indeed, there was a Senate inquiry done, led by Senator Andrew Bragg. That report goes to the issues which are impacting the likes of Shield and First Guardian and leading to losses by everyday Australians. Do you think the government has responded to that?

No. They're too lazy. They're just too lazy.

Fifteen months have gone by. They're not responding to that. Why would they bother?

Meanwhile, everyday Australians, hardworking Australians, are losing their life savings. What's in this bill? What's the relevance here?

Well, instead of actually scrutinising the likes of ASIC and APRA further and having assessments done every two years, what we see in this bill is the government saying, 'We'll only do it every five years.' Think about that. Australians have lost their savings. ASIC has a lot to answer for.

This government has done nothing. It has been given reports and recommendations to fix it. They've done nothing.

Then they put in this bill the idea, 'Actually, we don't need to look at ASIC every two years anymore; we're going to do it every five.' What sort of message does that send to those hardworking Australian families who have lost everything in some cases? What message does it send ASIC about whether or not this government wants them to fix problems? I think we know the answer to that rhetorical question.

There are other issues and schedules. I won't go through them now. The reason is that, while the coalition will not oppose this bill in the House, we are referring it to a Senate committee.

That Senate committee is the committee for economics. We will reserve our final position until after that committee has submitted its report. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Scrymgour ): Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Willcox: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.