Portfolio — 25 March 2026

The Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Dr Daniel Mulino, led a heavy legislative day on 25 March 2026, moving second readings on three substantive bills and actively defending one of them during consideration in detail — a portfolio output density that signals deliberate scheduling to advance a clutch of long-pending financial services reforms before the parliament rises.

The headline action was the joint introduction with the Attorney-General, Ms Michelle Rowland, of the Treasury Laws Amendment (The Survivors Law) Bill 2026, announced at a press conference attended by victim-survivors and cross-party members [TA-260325-treasu-50c4c1b03245]. The bill targets a specific structural gap: convicted child sexual abusers have been able to park assets in additional superannuation contributions and then declare bankruptcy, leaving court-ordered compensation permanently unpaid.

The legislation closes both escape routes — it gives victim-survivors a mechanism to apply for court access to an offender's voluntary superannuation contributions where a compensation order remains unsatisfied after 12 months, and it amends the Bankruptcy Act 1966 so that compensation debts survive an offender's bankruptcy [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s009].

The bill as introduced is stronger than the exposure draft that went to consultation: the scope of eligible contributions was expanded, defined-benefit accounts were brought within reach in some circumstances, and the lookback period was extended to 10 years before the criminal conviction [TA-260325-treasu-0bf8b9047d2d]. The government committed to a post-commencement review and flagged the potential extension to civil findings as a future consideration.

The Assistant Treasurer expressed intent to pass the bill within the current sitting year. The legislation fulfils a commitment first made in 2018, and the Minister framed it in the House as addressing a systemic failure where criminal conviction had not translated into meaningful compensation outcomes for survivors — a message consistent across both the ministerial media release and the second reading speech, reinforcing a single clear policy signal.

The Assistant Treasurer also moved the second reading of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering an Efficient and Trusted Tax System) Bill [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s010]. That bill packages four distinct measures: removal of the $2 minimum threshold for tax-deductible gifts; a requirement for trustees of closely held trusts to report beneficiary tax file numbers from 1 July 2026; exclusion of gambling and tobacco research from the R&D tax incentive from 1 July 2025 (with a harm-minimisation carve-out); and minor technical amendments across Treasury portfolio legislation.

The government framed the bill as simultaneously simplifying tax administration and drawing policy lines on where public R&D incentives should not flow.

The third bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance) Bill 2026, drew the most substantive chamber engagement [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s026]. Schedule 1 bans life insurers from using genetic test results in determining cover or its terms — a reform with cross-party support and driven in significant part by the advocacy of Dr Jane Tiller, whom the Minister acknowledged by name.

Schedule 2 provides licensing exemptions for foreign financial service providers to expand Australian wholesale and professional investors' access to cross-border advice, with ASIC given civil penalty powers and enhanced oversight. Schedule 3 streamlines the legislative framework for multilateral development banks and the IMF, formalising World Bank and Asian Development Bank agreements announced in the 2024–25 MYEFO.

Schedule 4 removes the stage 2 annual individual registration requirement for financial advisers with ASIC from 1 July 2026, leaving the existing system of licensee-level registration intact.

During consideration in detail, the Minister actively defended the bill's architecture against two proposed amendments [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s028]. He opposed a three-yearly review mechanism on the grounds that three years is insufficient for the ban's effects to materialise and that frequent reviews impose administrative burden. He also rejected amendment language that would allow regulations to override primary legislation, while affirming the bill's own delegated-legislation mechanism — which permits regulations to respond to advances in health and medical technology — as appropriately subject to parliamentary disallowance [TA-260325-house-8e0b2c08f739:s030].

The bill subsequently passed third reading. The Minister's position frames the legislation as deliberately futureproofed: flexible enough to track medical technology change, but anchored in primary law that regulations cannot displace.

Across all three bills, a consistent ministerial framing is visible: closing loopholes or structural gaps that existing law has left open (superannuation asset-shielding, genetic discrimination, R&D incentive misuse), while pairing each reform with a mechanism — review, ASIC oversight, disallowance — that preserves accountability after the legislation commences.