Senate Economics Legislation Committee, , 8:24:00 to 8:29:48
Senator Smith queries why the production tax offset for the film industry, a 2024 budget measure, has not yet been legislated.
Topics: Law reform, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Dean Smith, Hon Tim Ayres, Anthony Seebach, Erin Wells, Katrina Di Marco
Uh thank you very much. I'm just going to turn briefly to a broken promise, if I may. And I'd like to turn to the matter of the government's failed commitment to deliver on its promise in regards to the production tax offset measure for the Australian film industry. Can someone give me an update on that?
So I think Mr. I'll hand that one over to Mr. Seabart.
While the official is just getting himself ready, I might just remind the committee that in the 2024 budget paper number two at page 152, it states that the government will also remove the minimum length requirements for content and the above-the-line cap of 20 per cent of total qualifying production expenditure for the production tax offset. So I understand it was an election commitment. I understand it was detailed and documented in the 2024 budget paper. Um it's now been two and a half years. And if it hasn't, why not?
So Senator Anthony Seaback, First Assistant Secretary, Small Business and Non-For-Profits Division. Um the measure remains on the Treasury Portfolio legislation program for delivery. As you would appreciate, the government determines legislative priorities in the context of its broader legislative agenda and regularly reviews those priorities.
So you said that the legislative programme for uh delivery of various tax measures is regularly reviewed. Who reviews that and when was it last reviewed?
Um I think we were a view in advance of parliamentary sittings within the portfolio. Um that's consulted more broadly with portfolio ministerial officers. Ultimately, the Treasurer determines the priorities for the portfolio, but the Parliamentary Business Committee actually sets the priorities for the legislative programme across government.
So is that process? Does it proceed every parliamentary sitting week? Does it proceed every parliamentary year?
Senator Lightend is to Ms. Wells in this.
Good evening. Senator Aaron Wells, Chief Counsel and Head of the Law Division for the Treasury. Um we have a pretty robust um prioritization process which is carried out before each sitting period. Um that commences with an internal process. We have at any one time over 300 um measures on our legislative programme. It is the largest legislative programme across the Commonwealth. Uh that uh then goes for ministerial consideration, and as my colleague Mr. Seaback said, um, ultimately it's a determination by the Parliamentary Business Committee as to the order of prioritization of those measures.
I would be delighted, Senator Smith, to work with uh you and your team on efficiency and productivity measures for the Senate to speed up the pace of uh legislation being approved uh in the Australian Senate. The the blockage is uh there. That is the kind of productivity dead end on some of these questions.
We've only been here for a short time. But that is to do our best that is rubbish. The government regularly guillotines legislation at the end of a sitting fortnight. So whatever your commentary about how the coalition is effectively using other mechanisms of the Senate to hold the government to review that does not relate in this particular case because the government regularly uses the guillotine at the end of a parliamentary sitting fortnight to get passage through. Legislation legislative passage through what we're talking about here is the government's reluctance, lack of priority, lack of concern, lack of commitment to uh election promises and budget commitments to get the legislation on the program at all.
But but in relation to this question, um we could we could more more fast processes in the Senate would be good from an efficiency and productivity perspective, but this portfolio does have a very large legislative agenda. Um it is uh it is the case that uh the start date for this legislation is one July 2024. But that's not uncommon in an environment where there's such a large legislative agenda that is uh that's required. Um that that does that does involve balancing ambition uh with a kind of practical assessment of what's going to deliver the most effective uh legislation through the Senate, but um this will apply retrospectively. The participants in this market can be very confident about that.
How many Treasury bills have been introduced to the Parliament since the 2024 budget, Ms. Wells?