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

Mr LAXALE (Bennelong) (19:06): I haven't been in this place for too long. It's only my second term. But, in my short time here, I've learned two things pretty quickly.

One is not to take history lessons from the coalition—the Liberals or the Nationals. We just heard a claim that the instant asset write-off was a policy created by the coalition, when it was, in fact, the Rudd-Gillard government that started the instant asset write-off and a Labor government that supported small-business cash flow. I'll talk to that as part of schedule 7.

The second thing I've learnt while being in this place for a short time is certainly not to take any advice on energy policy from those opposite. Just quickly then I tried to google how many failed energy policies they've had since 2013. I think it's over 20 failed energy policies.

They took another one to the last election, and it was nuked by the Australian public. They want to bring that back as another energy policy. They'll probably change it a little bit again, and we'll start racking up triple digits, perhaps, on how many energy policies they've brought in here.

So, when the member for Fairfax comes here and says how fantastic the coalition were at energy policy, you need to laugh, because history suggests the total opposite. What we are doing, though, is modernising the energy market. We are transitioning to the cheapest form of new energy.

We will make the decisions, like we are in this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025, to extend measures that were due to expire. I was going to talk about schedule 7 first, but, given the member for Fairfax's contribution, I might start on schedule 6. The energy market protections were due to expire.

What this bill does is the right thing. It does a bit of maintenance on some of these expiring protections, and it will extend the consumer safeguard in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Act until 2031. An independent review found that these protections were effective in constraining market misconduct and protecting households and businesses.

By extending them, we are ensuring that affordability and fairness remain at the centre of the energy transition. That is what good governments do. They look at policies, they review them and, if they're worthy of extension, they extend them.

But taking advice from those opposite on energy policy is absolutely laughable. As we've heard, there are seven schedules in this bill. Overall, what this bill does is seek to strengthen confidence in our markets, improve the ways that regulators operate and support long-term economic growth.

It obviously, like most TLABs—again, this is not unique—covers a wide range of areas, from corporate disclosure and charity oversight to financial regulators, energy market protections and taxation. But, at its heart, this is a bill about investment, transparency and accountability—the foundations of stronger productivity and public trust, particularly in our economy.

Continuing on with schedule 7, this bill will implement the government's election commitment to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses until 30 June 2026—a really important measure for small businesses. I used to run a small business. I grew up in one—the family business—and spent a good 15 years running it, growing it and making sure it paid my bills and the family bills and also employed 10 to 15 workers during its peaks and troughs.

Having a more simplified tax system, encouraging investment in assets of up to $20,000, was a really important measure introduced by the Rudd-Gillard government way back in the early 2000s—not created by the Liberals and Nationals, as claimed by the member for Fairfax, but a Labor policy that we implemented, that we supported when we were in opposition and that we continued in government.

It's really an important thing to extend, because it improves cash flows and reduces compliance costs for small businesses. I've got some incredible small businesses right across Bennelong—in Eastwood, West Ryde, Gladesville and Lane Cove. They are mum-and-dad small businesses, including a lot of people who have just come to Australia for the first time.

Migrant communities have a high representation in small-business ownership. If you take a walk through Eastwood you can see them all, vibrant and making our high streets places to go, places to be. When you go out and talk to these small businesses in our electorates, they often talk about reducing red tape and making things easier for them.

They understand that compliance is important, but how can we make that simpler? The $20,000 instant asset write-off is absolutely one of those things that makes the everyday running of a small business easier. It means a cafe can upgrade its coffee machine or buy new hardware for its point-of-sale software.

It means companies can invest in those higher-price items, up to $20,000, without having to carry the depreciation over the schedule. It reduces their costs with their accountant, which we all know can be high sometimes, and they can write it off for 12 months to buy new and, importantly, second-hand assets. This measure was first introduced by Labor, because we know that cashflow measures like this really support small businesses.

It means they'll be able to immediately deduct eligible assets costing less than $20,000 rather than, as I said, tracking those assets over time. Importantly, up to 4.1 million small businesses across the country can access this instant asset write-off. The member for Fairfax just said that they're going to reserve their right.

The last time an instant asset write-off TLAB came to parliament, the coalition blocked and delayed it for at least 12 months, creating a whole heap of uncertainty for investment from the small-business sector. Those over on the other side claim to be all about small business, understanding the economics of running a small business, fighting for small businesses.

Yet they sowed doubt in the small-business community about whether or not they were going to support an extension of last financial year's instant asset write-off, only passing it at the eleventh hour. Let's hope the processes go through as outlined by the member for Fairfax. Let's hope that they can get through to the Senate, that they can have a look at this bill, which they're entitled to do, obviously, and send it off to a committee and that they don't sit on it and team up with others to delay this TLAB for an unnecessary amount of time.

All that will do is slow down investment from small businesses and create doubt in their minds. There are 1.281 million small businesses in New South Wales that can benefit from this measure and will benefit from this measure sooner, with confidence, the quicker this TLAB gets through the House and through the Senate. This is one measure of how this re-elected Labor government is really ensuring that we are supporting small businesses, and it's growing, I think.

I know many, many members of the class of 2025 mentioned small businesses in their first speeches. They either have come from a small-business background, have worked in them or have family that have worked in them. This is the modern Labor Party—one that has roots in our industrial base but also has real connection to small and medium-sized businesses right across the country.

We understand what small businesses go through, and we're here in this place representing them as much as we are workers across our economy. In our last parliamentary term, that manifested itself as more than $2 billion in targeted supports. I'll just focus on the targeted ones for now; obviously, there are the economy-wide reforms that we put through as well.

We've got a $900 million National Productivity Fund working with the states and territories to unlock productivity and cut red tape, particularly for small businesses. We've invested $33.4 million to improve payment times for small businesses, including $25.3 million in the 2024-25 budget to support the overhauled Payment Times Reporting Scheme and to enhance the regulator's ability to deliver payment outcomes for small businesses—another cash flow measure, just like the instant asset write-off.

Being paid on time saves small businesses headaches in chasing up their delinquent debtors, but it also means that they can get money in their bank accounts to reinvest. We provided over $60 million to help small businesses uplift their digital and cybersecurity capabilities, a huge and growing cost and concern for small businesses, particularly those that don't have the technical know-how of how to roll out a firewall in their local IT systems or how to deal with training of their staff—'Don't click on this,' and, 'Don't open that email.' Having the Cyber Wardens program and the Digital Solutions program is a way in which we understand that problem, and we're trying to help small businesses overcome these high-risk situations.

Of course, there are our tax cuts, famously opposed by the Liberals and Nationals. Having tax cuts for every taxpayer benefits 1.5 million sole traders. All 1.5 million of those sole traders—including tradies, hairdressers, coffee shops and other small businesses—across the country benefit when we change the income tax rates.

We know that the Liberals and Nationals went to the last election with the policy of not only opposing our tax cuts but actually repealing them and trying to increase taxes. Those over there are not Menzies's party, and perhaps that's the reason why someone like me was re-elected in a seat like Bennelong. We're here supporting small businesses and workers, including sole traders.

We have, of course, delivered additional energy bill relief, with another $150 in rebates until the end of the year. This builds on specific and targeted small-business electricity rebates we rolled out in the last term. As for our Cheaper Home Batteries Program, you heard the responsible minister say that over 78,000 home batteries have been installed through that.

We've made sure that small businesses are eligible to accept that. They will be eligible for up to 50 kilowatt hours of battery storage capacity. I would love to see some stats on how many small businesses are taking up that battery subsidy rebate, because we acknowledge that small businesses also want to decarbonise and reduce emissions and also want to access battery technology to help reduce their bills.

We've supported the hospitality sector by pausing indexation on the draught beer excise, and we've extended unfair trading practices protections to small business by strengthening the enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct. Schedule 7 of this bill and our commitment to deliver an extended instant asset write-off build on what we've done to support small businesses in our term-and-a-bit in government.

I would hope that the coalition cooperate in passing this bill through the House and through the Senate as soon as possible so that, in particular, schedule 7 gives small business the confidence to invest up to that $20,000 cap, a really important measure. I'll talk a little bit about some of the other schedules in my remaining time. Schedule 1 is all about corporate transparency.

These provisions will align us with international best practice to stop hidden build-ups of influence in listed companies. It'll give ASIC sharper enforcement powers to ensure compliance. Essentially, schedule 1 means that the public will have better access to ownership registers of corporations, shining a light on who really controls these companies—again, another measure building on what we did last term to increase world-leading transparency measures on corporations.

We've got public country-by-country reporting, disclosures of subsidiaries' tax residency and greater accountability for firms bidding for government contracts. Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to extend that principle. Schedule 2, on charities, is really important as well.

Public trust in charities is too important to be undermined by secrecy. Currently, the ACNC, the national regulator, cannot confirm whether or not a charity is under investigation, even in cases of gross and serious misconduct. This bill changes that, allowing disclosures where needed to prevent harm and assure the public that issues are being addressed.

This will give the public confidence in the charities sector. It will also give donors confidence that their contributions are well placed and support our goal of doubling philanthropic giving by 2030. Again, it's another cog in the wheel of broader reforms in transparency.

There's much more to this bill, but the aspects that I've highlighted are incredibly important, and I commend them to the House.