Senate Economics Legislation Committee, , 7:34:41 to 7:40:44
Officials are questioned on the 12-day consultation window for the exposure draft of the trust legislation and the volume of confidential versus non-confidential submissions received.
Topics: Integrity, Government spending
Speakers: Katrina Di Marco, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Hon Katy Gallagher, Laura Berger-Thomson, Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Um continues around discretionary trust changes. Um I'd like to understand who signed off on the decision for the consultation of the exposure draft legislation to be a window of only 12 business
See if we can provide that who signed it off as being the timetable.
Correct.
Uh well, I'm sure it was done with government.
Decisions on consultation times are done in consultation with or decisions of govern decisions of government. Um with the with the trust policy, we've been trying to manage both trying to give industry and the sector certainty around the direction of policy while also undertaking consultation. That's why there's been sort of a two-stage process here. There was a consultation paper undertaken in in July. I think that was open from the 8th to the 31st of July. That informed the exposure draft legislation, and then the exposure draft legislation was then released between the 13th, as you say, between the 3rd and the 18th of September.
So precisely, are you able to provide me? And perhaps you might need to give that on notice if you don't have the answer before you now, but specifically who was it that made the decision to provide a window of 12 business days only.
We can take that on notice, Senator, but I said these are always done in consultation with government, but we can take on notice the precise answer to your question.
Um what was the justification for allowing only 12 business days for stakeholders to consider and respond to such a complex package of tax legislation?
Senator again, we we appreciate the consultation period was was not long. Um it's why we decided to have a two-stage process. But it is also I said we are trying to manage the confluence of wanting to give industry certainty about the policy direction. That way they can undertake work with their clients, stakeholders can undertake with work with their clients and work with businesses to understand those implications with trying to consult and making sure those laws are in place and have been well socialised. There will be future tranches of legislation and we will continue to work with stakeholders and the sector through those.
Um you acknowledge that it was quite a complex package. Um do you think that 12 days is sufficient amount of time for stakeholders to consider that package?
Senator, I'm not going to proffer an opinion on the length of consultation times.
The impact analysis statement states that the consultation paper released in July and the exposure draft consultation received 595 submissions. How many submissions were received for each respective consultation?
Just check if we've I think we've got that information. I might hand to Miss Berger Thomson for that.
Um in the first for the consultation paper, so that's the first consultation. Um we received uh 333 non-confidential submissions and 109 confidential submissions to that one. Um then uh for the exposure draft legislation for that consultation, we received 134 non-confidential submissions and 19 confidential
Is that was that the expectation? Do you think that that's how many you may or may not receive in that amount of time?
That's yeah, it's not it's not up to officials, I think, to answer questions about that. Um the consultation uh timetable is agreed with government.
So I noted was a former Deputy Secretary Diane Brown who signed off on the statement of sufficiency for the impact uh analysis statement. Marco, would you be comfortable signing off on a statement of sufficiency for an impact analysis on such a complex piece of legislation that was only out for exposure draft consultation for 12 business days?
Minister, I'm uh Senator with great respect, I'm not going to answer that question.
I mean you you would make that presumably an official would make that decision based on the information before them. And I would say there was also a period I've got in my notes of consultation of the implementation of minimum tax on trusts from essentially the uh from the 8th to the 31st of July that led up to the exposure draft. So there's been quite a lot of work done in consulting in preparation for that exposure draft, which we should also take into.
Specifically with stakeholders.
It would have involved stakeholders, yeah.
I think Ms. Berger Thomson outlined the number of submissions we'd received in response to that consultation paper. And while I'm not going to answer sort of that question given it it's requesting an opinion, what I will say is that Miss Brown and Miss Berger Thomson have been actively engaged. With stakeholders since budget night. They have had a huge number of meetings to discuss these issues, and I have great confidence in the fact that it was signed off with knowledge of what the stakeholders' concerns were.
Are you able to provide a list of who those stakeholders were?
I think a lot of the submissions might actually be up on our website. The ones that were non-confidential, I think we might have some of those, but we can see what we can do to provide you more details on notice.
Thank you. More broadly, what modelling research or analysis has been completed by the department on the impact of the proposed discretionary trust changes? If any. Has any been done?