Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025
Dr MULINO (Fraser—Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services) (18:53): Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. Can I acknowledge the contribution that was just made by the member for Chifley and chair of the House of Representatives Economics Committee? He made a number of observations about different players in the financial services sector and regulators, but I also wanted to acknowledge the great interest he's shown in the Shield and First Guardian matters, both as a local member and as the chair of the committee, and I look forward to him continuing to contribute to what is an extremely important and complex public policy issue.
As he said, it is also, at its core, an issue that affects a lot of individual investors and families, and that is such a critically important dimension of that issue and the way that this chamber will deal with it going forward. The government will not be supporting the amendment moved by the member for Ryan. Ensuring companies pay the right amount of tax means the services that the Australian community needs can be delivered.
The Albanese government has strengthened the ATO to continue to do just that. The passage of the Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025 affirms the longstanding fee structure for certain company review fees collected by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The government is addressing a technical error in regulations that have applied indexation to certain company review fees since 2011.
The government has acted swiftly to ensure that the current fee structure does not need to change and that there will be no disruption to businesses and individuals who engage with the ASIC business registers. Users of the registries can have confidence that the government is correcting this error to maintain predictable and consistent business registry fees.
I commend the bill to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Scrymgour ): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Ryan has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words.
The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to. Question negatived. Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.