Bill Shorten: attacks on Turnbull over Cayman Islands all about 'ordinary people'
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Version 0 of 1. Bill Shorten has argued Labor’s focus on Malcolm Turnbull’s investment in funds registered in the Cayman Islands is not about any allegation of criminality, but whether leaders can understand the plight of ordinary Australians. The Labor leader – who was accused of “throwing mud” at the wealthy prime minister – said most people did not have the capacity to put millions of dollars into funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Related: Labor attacks Malcolm Turnbull for investments registered in Cayman Islands The real issues were tax transparency and the ability of “a lucky few” to access generous concessions not available to other people, Shorten said on Thursday. Labor pursued Turnbull in parliamentary question time on Wednesday in relation to three of his investments in Cayman-registered funds: Bowery Opportunity, Zebedee Growth and 3G Natural Resources. The Labor senator Sam Dastyari had earlier used parliamentary privilege to suggest that people invested in the Cayman Islands “so they do not have to play by the same rules as the rest of us”. He said the Bowery Opportunity Fund required a minimum investment of $1m. Turnbull told parliament many of his and his wife Lucy’s investments were in overseas managed funds in order to avoid conflicts of interest, but all their income from those investments was “taxed in full in Australia”. On Thursday, Shorten was asked about his own superannuation account with Australian Super. The super fund’s website indicates 1.29% of its holdings are in Tencent Holdings Ltd, which is incorporated and registered in the Cayman Islands. Shorten said there “couldn’t be a bigger gap or difference between Malcolm Turnbull and his millions of dollars sent to the Cayman Islands and the superannuation of ordinary Australians”. Shorten said the Cayman Islands were “cloaked in secrecy”. He was “uncomfortable that some people can shop around and get the best deals and minimise their tax and the rest … have to pay their tax because they can’t afford to go shopping in some of these exclusive tax jurisdictions”. “No one is saying, none of my colleagues have said, anything illegal has occurred. We have no facts to say that and that is not what is being said,” Shorten said in Canberra. Related: Follow the money: inside the world's tax havens “It’s a question of the sort of leadership that we expect in this country. Australians want to know that their leaders understand what they are doing, the lives they are leading.” Shorten said there was “a sense of frustration in Australia” about access to tax concessions and deductions. “I don’t believe in Australia we have a tax system which treats everyone equally,” he said. “Theoretically on paper everyone could put $1m into the Cayman Islands. The issue is most people don’t have that. I’m interested in the tax system in this country which is transparent. “For the life of me I don’t know why the Liberal party are fighting so hard to keep secret the tax arrangements of large Australian companies. I think it’s important ... for leadership to do as I do, not just do as I say. We need people to make sure that everyone in Australia is getting a fair go in the tax system.” Shorten was renewing his call for the government to dump its proposed legislation – due for debate in the Senate – to exempt Australian private companies with revenue over $100m from having their key tax details published. Labor also wants to rein in super tax concessions favouring high-income earners. Related: Labor's attack on Turnbull's Cayman Islands investments is all about image The shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, said there was “a world of difference between putting a bit of money into your superannuation fund and making an active decision to go into a vulture fund based in the Cayman Islands with a minimum $1m buy-in”. “One of the questions Malcolm Turnbull didn’t answer in parliament yesterday was whether the income derived from the funds was higher than it would have been had they not been based in the Cayman Islands,” Leigh said. The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, accused Shorten of “throwing this mud around” to distract from the character questions facing the former Australian Workers Union leader at the trade union royal commission. “I just think people have moved on from this sort of class warfare,” Dutton told 2GB. “Malcolm Turnbull has been successful in business; he’s a self-made man. Good luck to him.” Turnbull said his investments had been approved under the ministerial code of conduct, he took care to ensure his declarations of interests were accurate and up to date, and “no Australian tax is avoided”. “In order to avoid conflicts of interest, almost all of my and my wife’s investments – and they are all disclosed – are in overseas managed funds, which means that I and Lucy have no say in which single-name companies those managed funds invest in,” he told parliament on Wednesday. “The purpose of a managed fund being domiciled in the Cayman Islands is to cater for international investors – non-US investors – so that the income from the fund accruing to each of the investors is taxed in their own jurisdiction ... The fact is that all of that income, all of my share of the income, is fully taxed in Australia.” |