Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Reporting System Reform) Bill 2026

Senator LIDDLE (South Australia—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (16:45): In continuance, let me be clear about what the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Reporting System Reform) Bill 2026 actually does. It abolishes the Financial Reporting Council, the Australian Accounting Standards Board and the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and replaces all three with a single new entity: External Reporting Australia.

Under the current system, the Australian Accounting Standards Board sets the accounting standards, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board sets the auditing standards and the Financial Reporting Council provides oversight. That is a deliberate structural separation. This bill removes that structural separation entirely and consolidates authority into one entity governed by a single board.

The coalition does not support reform for reform's sake. It's a mirage—this is a mirage. There has been no collapse in standards.

There has been no international credibility crisis, nor has there been any demonstrated governance failure. Australia's accounting standards institutions are respected, and they are internationally aligned. Senator O'Neill: What about KPMG?

Senator LIDDLE: Chair, can I please be heard in silence? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Hodgins-May ): Yes, please let Senator Liddle— Senator LIDDLE: Good governance starts with a simple question: what problem are we actually solving? Much like its toxic tax reform, this government has failed to answer that.

As Deputy Chair of the Economics Legislation Committee, I engaged constructively with this process throughout the Senate inquiry into this bill. I listened to submissions from accounting professionals, industry stakeholders and businesses across the financial services sector, and not one of them pointed to a failure in the current system that justified tearing it down.

True to form, the government never engaged seriously with our suggestions. Labor instead partnered again with the radical green left. We have seen this pattern before, with the government's most recent tax changes.

We saw it give in to the Greens and agree to bar self-managed super funds from borrowing to invest in the property market. We already know, from page 158 of your own budget papers, that your tax changes will reduce the number of new homes built by 35,000 and will increase rents. Are Labor and the Greens genuinely comfortable seeing 25 per cent fewer affordable rental units and townhouses available in my home state of South Australia and to Australians right around the country who are already struggling to find a place to live?

This makes it seem so. We all share concerns about the conduct of some of the big four accounting firms and the recent conduct of KPMG in particular, but you don't tear down the whole village. That's what you're doing with this legislation.

Senator O'Neill interjecting— Senator LIDDLE: Senator, I saw you there in the sham inquiry that you ran for the tax reform. This is the same. You're tearing down the village when there's a single house on fire.

It's ridiculous. But sharing those concerns does not mean we should support a political purge of broader professions that employ these people. (Time expired) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Pursuant to order, the time for consideration of this bill has expired.