Mary Aldred
Monash · Liberal Party · Australia
“It's a privilege to rise for my 100th contribution to this place. In doing so, I want to address a barbeque-stopper of a conversation topic in my electorate of Monash, and that is homeownership. I'm deeply concerned. Building approvals dropped in May for the third consecutive month. This is an impact of the budget's housing tax changes.”
“You can measure the budget deficit of this government in numbers, but nothing compares to the deficit of trust it has created in Australia. We need to unlock supply and enable local infrastructure like Weebar Road in Drouin, in my electorate of Monash, which I've been fighting very hard for.”
“This Friday is 3 July, and it is the 12-month anniversary of the swearing-in of the class of 2025. It is a momentous occasion for that class among us.”
“I've got a constituent right now who's living with her abuser in fear because leaving means she will be separated from her special needs son and pets, and she cannot afford to move out. There are a couple living in a tent in a stranger's driveway in my electorate, and they cannot afford anywhere to rent on their $450-per-week budget.”
“Our wonderful CFA volunteers in Victoria answer the call in the middle of the night and step away from their work in the middle of the day to protect our community year round. As the daughter of someone who was a CFA volunteer, I know this very well.”
“For all the smirking and the back-patting and the preening that this prime minister carries on with, Australians right now deserve so much better from their government. Look at health.”
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“I passionately believe that your postcode shouldn't determine your potential, and there's no more important area in my electorate of Monash than higher education skills and improving higher education outcomes for my community. In 2011, I had the privilege of serving on the Gippsland Tertiary Education Council, and that followed on from some very important work that was initiated through the Gippsland Tertiary Education Plan, which was chaired and undertaken by Kwong Lee Dow, former vice-chancellor of Monash University. I reflect on that time to now, and some of those findings and imperatives remain just as true today as they were in 2011. There are barriers to education and higher education outcomes in my electorate that existed back then and still exist today, and they centre around a lack of access.”
“Newhaven College had 144 new students join in 2026, with the preps welcomed to the college with a special parade. Leongatha Primary School had a preppie, Rex Williams, so eager to start that he turned up a day early. That's been shared with me and the local paper. Wonthaggi Primary School have returned, with work well underway on some exciting new developments. Enrolments are up on last year, with lots of brothers, sisters and cousins joining the current cohort of students.”
“There are also those teacher support staff that are on the front line of managing a number of behavioural and additional learning needs presented by students. In supporting students directly and assisting in classrooms, education support staff reduce pressure on teachers, who are already stretched thin. I'm talking to a lot of parents in my electorate of Monash who tell me that classroom sizes are just expanding and expanding under this Victorian Labor government, who don't care about regional communities. Many parents in my community are experiencing the impact of that every single day. So, at a time when schools are struggling to recruit and retain, these education support staff are absolutely critical. I also want to say that we've got a number of other schools doing terrific work in my electorate.”
“So to Karen Farbus I say thank you. I want to acknowledge education support staff, who work incredibly hard under incredibly difficult circumstances at many of our schools across Monash. They too are often overlooked, yet they're essential to keeping classrooms functioning, particularly as schools manage increasing complexity and ongoing teacher shortages. I hear from a lot of parents locally who are grappling with challenges that have emerged, particularly since COVID and remote learning, where young people are more reluctant to attend school. I've seen an increase in school refusal. So those teacher support staff are doing a really important job. I say thank you for the huge hours that you put in and your dedication and your care for students in Monash.”
“As we discuss this motion, it's important that we keep those people front and centre of our remarks as well because policy funding and reform only matter when they're genuinely supporting the people there to make a difference and shape, develop, inspire and encourage the young people in our communities. I want to acknowledge a couple of really special people in my electorate. After 41 years of teaching, 21 of those years at Nyora Primary School, Karen Farbus retired at the end of 2025. Over her years as both a principal and a teacher Karen made a lasting impact on students, families and the wider community. Nyora Primary School put together a special collection of letters and memories to celebrate her contribution and the real difference that Karen has made to every individual life she's touched at that school.”
“Across our schools, to the principals, teachers, education support staff, counsellors and volunteers in my electorate of Monash, I want to say thank you, because your commitment to making sure our students, our young people, are supported not just academically but as a whole is incredibly important to our entire community. On behalf of the people of Monash, I say thank you. What stands out to me is their example, which reflects something we so often see across our education system: people, young and old, doing far more than what is written in any position description. It's that quiet, consistent effort that holds school communities together.”
“I passionately believe that your potential should not be determined by your postcode. Unfortunately, that is not a value shared by this federal Labor government when it comes to regional communities like mine in the electorate of Monash. Before I begin my remarks, I want to acknowledge my mum, Margie, who graduated 50 years ago from the Victorian Teachers College with her friend Franne Holowko, and they've remained best friends for 50 years. My mum still tells stories of some of the students that she most loved and that she supported through different challenges. My mum taught at some of the most disadvantaged schools in Victoria. That has really stayed with me and I really appreciate that. My mum gave up a career she really loved to raise me and my three siblings and so I just want to put on the record today how special and loved she is.”
“They've been ignored for too long. They deserve far better, and I'll continue to fight for their access to improved digital connectivity and mobile black spot eradication.”
“In 2024 alone, Australians lost over $107 million to scam calls and messages. ACMA issued 10 directions to comply with the Reducing Scam Calls and SMS Code, but the two-step process delayed enforcement. This bill removes that delay, enabling ACMA to take immediate action to protect consumers. The bill also strengthens ACMA's powers to monitor and enforce compliance across the sector similar to how the energy sector regulates its operators. Providers who pose a risk to consumers can now have their registration cancelled. Telecommunications companies will be required to report those cybersecurity incidents and to swiftly mitigate them. One of the most important things I want to see prioritised under this federal government is better, more secure access by consumers in regional and rural communities for digital connectivity.”
“These measures are important because, for too long, compliance with industry codes has been seen as voluntary or a bit optional, even where those breaches affect people's safety. A good example is the emergency call database rules. These require providers to maintain accurate telephone numbers and addresses so that when a person calls triple zero—and we've seen multiple failures in that area under this government—emergency services arrive at the correct location the first time. You can't take a set-and-forget approach. In 2024, ACMA issued seven notices for breaches of these rules, but, under the two-step system, no financial penalties were applied immediately. People's lives literally depend on these rules being enforced and adhered to, and it's good to see tougher compliance being presented. Another example is phone scams.”
“If you can have light-handed, industry-led regulation, that's a great outcome, but not in all cases is that achievable. Making that a mandatory and enforceable industry code is a step in the right direction. Requiring providers to report cybersecurity incidents and take swift remedial action is an important reform, particularly in the age we live in, where a growing number of cybersecurity related breaches and threats posed to consumers, small businesses and lots of companies across the board that deal with sensitive consumer data is important. This bill says it will seek to increase penalties for breaches from $250,000 to $10 million, with the possibility of even higher fines based on the provider's turnover or benefit obtained from the breach.”
“They've been able to prioritise a number of those areas for the next round of the Mobile Black Spot Program, the Regional Connectivity Program and the Connecting Victoria program. This bill, along with the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, seeks to provide critical reforms that will help prevent situations where consumers are put at risk or are not able to access the services that they need and should be able to rely on. The bill says it will create a register of all carriage service providers, giving ACMA full visibility of operators in the Australian market. It says it'll make compliance with industry codes mandatory and enforceable without the delays of the current two-step warning process. This is a good thing.”
“I looked at a couple of things that will form part of the key primary production drivers in the region over the next couple of years, and already it's a pretty stark finding. A hundred per cent have a major supply shortfall in fixed access broadband services for business users, and 60 per cent have intermediate supply shortfall for LPWAN supported services. For these reasons, Committee for Gippsland—I used to very proudly serve as its CEO—has done some excellent work on digital connectivity across the region. I want to commend the Gippsland Local Government Network and those individual local government organisations, like Baw Baw Shire, City of Latrobe, South Gippsland Shire and Bass Coast Shire, who have worked very hard to map, plan and prioritise those digital connectivity needs.”
“As their technology advances and changes, as they tap into new markets and as they adopt different ways of doing things, they need affordable, reliable and modern technology infrastructure. They've got to be able to do that to provide those products to the rest of our state and across Australia. But we are, of course, a net exporter of everything that we grow, make and manufacture in this country, so, to be able to remain competitive across the globe and to be able to keep living up to that great reputation Australia has as a maker, grower and producer of very fine things, farmers, small businesses and manufacturers in my electorate of Monash desperately need better digital connectivity.”
“There are real people in real communities facing real risks—particularly in an emergency or accident—because of the gaps in our telecommunications infrastructure, and this is getting worse. It is not improving. I'm proud to represent a region that grows, makes and manufactures things the rest of Australia relies on. When our region succeeds, the rest of Victoria does very well, and Australia looks to us to provide those first-class products. I looked at an analysis of digital intensity requirements for our food and fibre sector right across the Gippsland region, because that sector will rely increasingly on digital services over the next three to five years.”
“That infrastructure is not keeping pace with new population and additional demand. In the last seven months, I've had nearly 50 people contact me about mobile black spots and connectivity issues. These are local residents, small businesses and emergency service providers, and they all tell me the same thing: we've got to improve connectivity to regional communities. Peter from my electorate reached out regarding his two elderly parents, who were among 24 residents in Buffalo left without a landline for over a month. I'll repeat that. Peter's two elderly parents in Buffalo were left without a landline for over a month. That is not good enough and that is not acceptable, but that is the reality under the Albanese federal Labor government.”
“There's also been an increased gap for remote and rural communities. In 2022, the Digital Inclusion Index found a 12-point gap in digital inclusion between major cities and very remote areas, with the gap in access being as high as 18.2 points. There's an infrastructure strain as well. The sea change and tree change migration trend that we've seen through COVID to many regional and peri-urban communities like mine has put additional pressure on existing, already weak regional infrastructure. Whether it's telecommunications or housing, we see this a lot. State Labor governments are asking regional communities and peri-urban communities to host additional infrastructure, but they are not supporting those communities with increased investment in infrastructure.”
“While urban areas are able to access high-speed, reliable and affordable internet, regional and remote communities are struggling with service quality, reliability and affordability. A 2024 OECD report confirmed that connectivity gaps between urban and rural areas are increasing. Absolute chaos ensued after the 3G shutdown in 2024, of course, and many regional users of the 3G network were significantly impacted. Some of those communities were left without coverage or forced to rely on expensive and often unreliable alternatives. We've also seen, according to a number of reports, an increasing trend of complaints. For example, between 2021 and 2024, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman received over 51,000 complaints from regional consumers regarding poor service, outages and unreliable connections.”
“I was pleased that the initiative aimed to support local businesses and farmers, such as those in Korumburra, who struggle with unreliable phone and internet coverage, which really does impact on their day-to-day operations. These challenges go beyond just my community. The 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review and data from the Regional Australia Institute shows that regional, rural and remote communities are falling behind in digital connectivity, with the digital divide widening as technology advances. I'll repeat that: the gap between those in our cities and metropolitan areas and those in regional communities, who I represent, is widening. Their access to adequate technology and services is getting worse, not better. I'll give some examples of these deficiencies.”
“The focus of this funding that was announced was on improving connectivity in areas, like Korumburra, where we have frequent service dropouts, particularly on the road to Leongatha. I want to give a shout-out to the local florist in Korumburra, who spoke with Sussan Ley and me about some of the issues that she had servicing customers and making sure there were secure and reliable phone connections in her business. I've consistently raised this issue because, under the current Albanese Labor government, digital connectivity and mobile phone reception are not being addressed significantly. In fact, we're seeing a widening of the gap in digital infrastructure between metropolitan and regional areas.”
“This is the reality for residents in my electorate of Monash and residents who live in regional communities right across our country. This is the reality of regional communications under this federal Labor government. We're in Labor's no-care zone when it comes to digital connectivity. During the election, Sussan Ley joined me in Korumburra to announce support for addressing mobile black spots across South Gippsland, West Gippsland and the Bass Coast, which is a key issue for our region. I was pleased to be able to announce a $3 million commitment to address specific mobile black spot eradication across the Monash electorate that the coalition would support, and I commit myself to working every day in this place to deliver on mobile black spot eradication and better regional connectivity for all Australians.”
“Brian, from Corinella, recently contacted my office, saying: Mary, if this keeps on going this way, someone in this town will die because they cannot call an ambulance. These are not isolated incidents; they are the reality for many Australians living in regional and remote areas. Wendy, from my electorate, recently wrote to me as well: Mary, can you look into the black spot of mobile reception along the Sth Gippsland Hwy at Grassy Spur? This part of the Hwy is notorious for car crashes, yet there is no reception to call for help. Prior to 3g being turned off there was only a small section of a couple of hundred metres where you had no reception. It is from the bottom of the hill to the top of Foster north on the Leongatha side and kilometres long.”
“I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, a bill that the government says will strengthen consumer protection and ensure Australians can rely on their mobile phones when it matters most. This bill, in terms of the stated obligations presented by the government, is long overdue, and I speak from experience in my electorate of Monash, particularly the broader South Gippsland region, where residents live daily with frustrations caused by poor connectivity, unreliable reception and black spots that put lives at risk. In Corinella, Waratah Bay and Walkerville, residents often go months without reliable phone access. I have constituents contact me every couple of days about a new example.”
“If MotoGP were to leave, it would leave a hole in regional businesses that we simply cannot replace. There's no substitute event waiting in the wings that delivers the same scale, certainty or international profile. Yet this is Jacinta Allan's Victoria, where major events and reinvestment are continually put at risk. That's why I've written to the trade minister asking for support and certainty. Jess Wilson said she's absolutely revved up, and rightly so. We need the Phillip Island GP to stay local.”
“I rise to speak about the deep and growing concern across Phillip Island about the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix beyond 2026. MotoGP is the economic heartbeat of Phillip Island. Local accommodation providers, cafes, restaurants and retailers are crystal clear: MotoGP week underpins their entire year. Forward bookings, staffing decisions and investment plans are already being made based on the assumption that this event continues, and the uncertainty alone is already causing damage. This is more than just dollars and cents though. MotoGP has shaped Phillip Island's identity for decades. It has put the island on the world stage, driven regional tourism and supported stable, local jobs in a community that absolutely loves the GP, even if the Victorian Labor government's enthusiasm is running on empty.”
“Regional Australians are not getting a fair go from this government when it comes to investing in the services that they need. They deserve a far better go on health and hospitals. We've had the Prime Minister write to state premiers saying, 'Please stop spending so much money on hospitals,' as if people can stop getting sick. In regional communities like mine, those emergency departments are overflowing because of a lack of investment by successive state and federal Labor governments. Australians deserve better. My electorate of Monash deserves far better.”
“I get emails regularly from local families telling me they cannot keep their heads above water. They are really struggling with the cost of health care in their community. A good example is mental health. I'm working with some amazing local organisations, including the Village Health centre in Warragul. I've previously been a member of the board of Lifeline Gippsland. I know how many volunteers in our community are dedicated to advancing mental health needs. But, when you've got a government that cut Medicare subsidised sessions from 20 a year—which the coalition secured—to 10 a year, it goes to show where their priorities are, and they are not investing in regional mental health services. They're not investing in regional health services that we so desperately need in the Monash electorate and further afield.”
“Unfortunately, successive state and federal Labor governments have ignored that plight. The Victorian state Labor government could not care less about the need for a new west Gippsland hospital, and I know Wayne Farnham is taking up the fight every single week to advance that. On Medicare, we've seen a prime minister repeatedly promise that seeing a GP would be free—all you would need is your Medicare card. Yet I get emails and phone calls every single week from Monash residents who are facing out-of-pocket costs at now record rates to visit their GP—particularly going over $50. Health inflation, as we know, has risen by 18 per cent. Across Victoria, families are paying billions of dollars in out-of-pocket costs every year, money coming straight out of their pockets—not Medicare.”
“What we're seeing at the moment is a prime minister who does not walk the talk when it comes to investing and supporting communities like mine in Monash, whether it's challenges in south Gippsland or, indeed, the West Gippsland Hospital, which was built pre-World War II—in fact, parts of it were built pre-World War I. We are experiencing explosive population growth right across west Gippsland. In fact, if you listen to the demographer Bernard Salt, Warragul and Drouin are the fastest-growing towns anywhere in Australia. The fact is that the infrastructure at West Gippsland Hospital cannot keep pace with that population demand. I'm working with my state Liberal colleague Wayne Farnham, the member for Narracan, to push as hard as we can to advance the case for a new west Gippsland hospital, which our region desperately needs.”
“Despite these challenges, the entire Leongatha health community have really gone above and beyond to keep that care flowing. They've mobilised quickly to provide telehealth consultations, alternative GP arrangements, patient support and much more. Those efforts ensure that, even in the face of the uncertainty at the moment, the wellbeing of south Gippsland residents remains the top priority. It highlights the vital role of regional healthcare teams. I also want to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of my state coalition colleagues Danny O'Brien and Melina Bath in working with local residents and GPs to make sure we get through this very, very challenging time. Health care in regional areas is absolutely essential.”
“Before turning to the context and substance of this motion, I just want to spend a couple of moments remarking on the closure of Leongatha Healthcare clinic in January, which has put an enormous strain on the south Gippsland community. For decades, the clinic's been the backbone of primary health care in the region, serving thousands of patients. Its abrupt closure has left staff and patients with little notice and disrupted access to vital care, creating immense pressure on Leongatha memorial's urgent care centre. There are GPs and staff working around the clock right now, with no pay from that clinic, to provide support to local patients. I want to acknowledge the significant effort that they're going to and extend, on behalf of the people of Monash, my sincere appreciation for their dedication and care to our local community.”
“Taking the excise back to 2018-19 levels would help to address this. I also think we need to look at an AFP taskforce, with teams in each state, particularly Victoria, where the illegal trade is flourishing. We should combine that with landlord termination powers, licensing and a fit-and-proper-person test, and then Australia would have a plan that works. Illegal tobacco is putting all Australians at risk. It's about time the federal government and this minister got serious about addressing it.”
“Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission wastewater statistics show that more nicotine was consumed by Australia last year than eight years ago, with an illegal pack of smokes now at around $12. One of the biggest losers has been the ATO. Since 2013, under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, the excise started to rocket up and has since then increased by 282 per cent. New South Wales Labor premier Chris Minns has consistently called out his federal Labor colleagues for not doing enough and not addressing the excise issue. To those who argue that reducing the excise encourages smoking, the Laffer economic curve disproves this. It demonstrates that, by driving taxation of tobacco beyond a reasonable level, it actually encourages people to a black market of illegal tobacco. This is where we see an uptick in smoking.”
“Just a few days ago, a machine that can produce up to 3.6 million illicit cigarettes a day was seized by Australian Border Force. Australian Border Force data for the final quarter of last year reveals that officers seized more than 467 tonnes of cigarettes and tobacco before it entered the country. The black market cigarettes and vapes would have been worth more than $1 billion in evaded excise that would have gone towards funding roads, schools and hospitals in Australia. It's time for radical reform at a federal level. Up another five per cent last year, government price increases on cigarettes are driving up crime and smoking. That effectively taxes $28 out of every $50 pack of smokes.”
“He has been named by the gangland taskforce, looking at a spate of violent home invasions and arson, as directing those crimes from overseas. Martin McKenzie-Murray has written very thoroughly on Hamad in the Saturday Paper . He has noted the AFP's identification of Hamad as a national security risk. I quote: The AFP's interest in Hamad intensified when it began to suspect his involvement, on behalf of the Iranians, in organising the torching of a Melbourne synagogue in December 2024. Since 2023, there have been around 200 firebombings of grocers and tobacco shops that are related to this. The retail industry estimate they have lost $2 billion in legal sales to the illegal racket over the last four years. A growing number of legal retailers are now not selling cigarettes at all.”
“The 14 inspectors from the Tobacco Licensing Victoria agency are expected to cover the entire state to dish out fines but not shut down illegal shops. When the Victorian Labor government minister was asked why, he said the government was still considering whether such laws were even possible. What he should have said was, 'We're going to roll out new laws to pull down the shutters on illegal tobacco shops, give lease termination powers to landlords and stop them selling illicit products.' That would have been the responsible thing to do. Gangland thugs like Kaz Hamad are directing their cartels from here and abroad, terrorising small-business owners, assaulting retail staff and short-changing the tax office. Hamad was arrested in Iraq last month, where a court declared him to be one of the most dangerous men in the world.”
“Inverloch is one of the most beautiful parts of my electorate. It's where Australia's best soil meets jewel encrusted seas. But, like many parts of Australia right now, Inverloch has an illegal tobacco and vape outlet in town. I've had local residents reach out to voice their concerns. Despite being raided by federal authorities just days ago, this outlet continues to allegedly sell vapes to children. Members of the Therapeutic Goods Administration raided the outlet in late January and removed hundreds of vapes from the shelves, according to the Herald Sun . While the TGA continues to consider what to do next, the outlet remains open for business. This is not an isolated incident. Despite the tobacco wars terrorising our community for years now, it only occurred to the Victorian government last week to do something.”
“My drought-stricken farmers in Monash have not been given fairness, leniency or understanding by the ATO or indeed through my representations to this government. They deserve better. All Australians deserve better.”
“But intent is not the law. This issue began under Labor. It remained hidden for 14 years, and it reflects a broader pattern of poor drafting and weak quality control that undermines confidence in our regulatory systems. The Liberal Party's position is clear. We will not oppose this bill in the House, but we will not support it without proper scrutiny. We will push for a Senate inquiry to examine the full scope of the mistake and ASIC's accountability. This is about fairness, integrity and consistency. It's about doing what is right, because Australians expect and deserve better. If small businesses are expected to comply with every letter of the law—and they are—then government and regulators must be held to the same standard.”
“The 10-year upfront review fee for small proprietary companies increased from $2,200 to $3,100. Special purpose company fees rose from $43 to $60. These are not abstract numbers for small businesses and for not-for-profits that survive on the smell of an oily rag; these dollars are consequential. They represent hard work, risk, blood, sweat and tears. They represent real costs borne by businesses and organisations who assumed, quite rightly, quite reasonably, that the law was sound. Regulations made on 11 March 2025 have fixed the problem prospectively. This bill is required to apply that fix retrospectively, back to 1 July 2011. Without it, ASIC could face refund claims worth hundreds of millions of dollars, despite the fact that these fees reflected longstanding policy intent, relied upon by both government and business.”
“The sheer scale underscores why this issue cannot be dismissed as a footnote. The Senate committee process must examine how this drafting error went undetected for 14 years. It must examine whether concerns were raised earlier by ASIC or Treasury legal teams, and, if so, why were they not acted upon? It must also consider whether affected businesses should be entitled to refunds, credits or offsets. It must look squarely at which accountability mechanisms failed and how they can be strengthened to ensure this never happens again. Australians expect government to get the basics right. To understand the real-world impact, it is worth looking at how these fees increased over time. The late annual review fee rose from $70 to $93 for payments 28 days late, and from $292 to $387 for payments more than three months late.”
“Now, there are some special cases in instances of national security where retrospective legislation is required. However, we also recognise the serious budget implications if refund claims were allowed to proceed unchecked. This is a difficult balance that this parliament must now confront, and that is precisely why scrutiny matters. This bill cannot simply be waved through on the basis that it's just a technical issue. It's not a technical issue. There are some profound principles at play here that demand scrutiny. It's not a minor error, and it's not narrow. It affects millions of entities across the Australian economy. Around 1.56 million currently registered entities have paid the affected fees. Approximately 795,000 deregistered entities were also charged. A further 440,000 active entities have been invoiced but have not yet paid.”
“This arose from an honest drafting error, but fairness demands the same legal standards apply to government agencies as those that apply, in my view, to small-business owners. The rule of law cannot operate in only one direction. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 retrospectively validates 14 years of fees that ASIC had no legal authority to charge. In practical terms, it retrospectively legitimises more than $150 million in revenue. Retrospective legislation is something the Liberal Party would ordinarily oppose. We are intrinsically wary about it as a general legislative principle, particularly where it shields government from legal exposure. Retrospective laws undermine certainty and trust in the system. They change the rules after the fact.”
“I asked the Treasurer, on behalf of those farmers, to request that the ATO show fairness and leniency when those drought impacted farmers put their hand up and say, 'I'm struggling here.' I got a pro forma fact sheet back not addressing the issue, which demonstrated what I think is an enshrined contempt for, and sometimes wilful ignorance of, the plight of everyday regional Australians trying to keep their head above water right now. It's a good example of how bodies like ASIC and the ATO employ a double standard of expectation on these issues. It's why it is extraordinary that the same regulator that fines a business for missing a $310 payment has been charging unlawful fees for more than a decade.”
“I've had a little bit to say previously about the officiousness of regulatory bodies recently in their treatment of small businesses, and I'll give one example. Last year I wrote to Treasurer Jim Chalmers on behalf of drought impacted farmers in my electorate of Monash. They had had a very dry winter, which had been preceded by further dry conditions. So financially stretched were a number of these farmers that they were forced to sell off stock early, and, of course, that was going to affect their tax bill at the end of the financial year.”
“Key findings from the report regarding ASIC's failures include the dismissal of misconduct reports, with ASIC having taken no further action on approximately 66 per cent of reports of alleged misconduct received from the public; automated no-action emails, with the report highlighting that most statutory reports submitted by liquidators regarding insolvent companies are met with an automated no-further-action email, sometimes within 40 seconds of a submission; underenforcement and inadequate penalties, with the committee finding that, for matters where ASIC does take action, civil penalties are often at odds with the scale of offending and few criminal sanctions are achieved; the failure to use its full powers, with ASIC accused of not using the full extent of its powers to tackle serious misconduct such as illegal phoenix activity, which, as we all know, heavily impacts small-business owners; and its 'lighter' approach, with the committee noting that the express investigation approach adopted during the pandemic, which prioritised cooperation, resulted in insufficient enforcement.”
“When the shoe is on the other foot, there are a number of instances where ASIC is slow out of the gates in seriously considering the complaints of small business, and I'll raise a few examples. A 2024 parliamentary report by the Senate Economics References Committee suggested that ASIC had often failed to protect small businesses by dismissing reports of corporate misconduct too quickly or by focusing only on minor enforcement measures.”
“ASIC is known for its strict enforcement; it issues penalties for late payments, cancels registrations and applies late fees without hesitation. Small businesses know that missing a payment, sometimes as small as a few hundred dollars, has serious consequences. ASIC don't muck around. I've previously sat as a member of ASIC's small business and industry roundtable. I've raised the plight of small-business people directly with ASIC, with its most senior executive members, and on occasion they've listened. But, on the whole, ASIC are not Robinson Crusoe here. Government bureaucracies are well behind the benchmark of where they should be when it comes to treating small-business people with respect, fairness and understanding. You can uphold the law and act with decency at the same time.”
“That fact alone should have given all of us in this place pause. ASIC fees are not incidental charges. They're not, in effect, a tax on doing business. Every company in Australia must pay them in order to exist in our regulatory system. When those fees are unlawfully charged, that matters. It matters not just legally but morally. This error may well represent the largest retrospective tax validation exercise in Australia's history. ASIC currently collects around $1.8 billion each year in fees and levies. That's more than a billion dollars from registry fees paid by Australian businesses, many of them small businesses, many of them mum-and-dad operators who work really hard to be able to afford those fees and levies.”
“Despite this, ASIC continued to apply indexation across all of these fees for the next 14 years. I'll repeat that: 14 years. There couldn't be a better example of 'set and forget' than what has occurred here. As a result, ASIC collected an estimated $150 to $200 million in fees that were not technically authorised in law. Those fees were paid in good faith by Australian businesses and organisations that had absolutely no reason to believe the charges were unlawful. They paid them in good faith. This issue was not uncovered by whistleblower. It was not uncovered by a court case. It was not uncovered by a parliamentary review. It was only identified in late 2024 during an internal ASIC legal audit, more than a decade after the regulation first took effect. This is not good enough.”