Crackdown on multinational tax avoidance

Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has demanded the public sector sell the pot plants from department and agency offices.

Spoiler alert: there are no pot plants!

Last week we saw a crackdown on multinational tax avoiders with world-leading tax transparency laws passed by the Albanese Government.

In the same week, Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart called for a massive Trump-style cuts to the public service and selling off the ABC because she wants a tax cut.

Crackdown on multinational tax avoidance

In a great win, Labor, the Greens and the cross-bench worked together to pass world leading tax transparency laws, including provisions that mandate country-by-country reporting. Under the new laws, multinational corporations operating in Australia must now publicly disclose information about the profits they are making and the tax they are paying.

The new legislation makes it much harder for corporations to hide their finances around the globe to avoid or massively reduce their tax bills. This is a great win that tax justice advocates, including CPSU and other unions, have been campaigning for.

Ensuring everyone – including big corporations and multinationals – pays their fair share of tax means there is revenue to fund our services, health, security, education and more.

Rinehart wants Trump-style cuts to the public service and to sell of the ABC

But the ultra-rich don’t want to pay their fair share – and Australia’s richest person and staunch Coalition Party supporter Gina Rinehart in fact wants to cut our public services so she can pay even less.

Gina Rinehart used a recent National Mining Day speech to call for massive Trump-style cuts to the public service and renewable energy initiatives, saying taking the axe to public spending would pay for tax cuts.

“Cut out the duplicated federal departments, have the courage to sell the ABC radio, and close the ABC TV … Cut out expenditure on the Environmental Defenders Office… sell the pot plants and artifacts from all the departments and agencies offices… these are just some of many opportunities to cut expenditure and wastage to make way for tax cuts!" said Rinehart.

Peter Dutton and the Coalition have made clear they want to cut the federal public service by 20% - 36,000 jobs - and their close ally Gina Rinehart is out rallying her fellow ultra-rich to call for the destruction of vital public services to fund a tax cut they don’t need.

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You can also read Karen Barlow’s recent article, Labor confronts Rinehart led push to cut public service, on the CPSU website (originally published in the Saturday Paper).