Senator LINES (Western Australia) (16:22): Australians can smell a rat a mile away and they have well and truly smelt a rat in relation to multinational tax avoidance. Wage earners in Australians cannot avoid their tax; most do not want to as most Australians recognise that tax revenue contributes to hospitals, schools, roads, public transport and so on—the general wellbeing of our community. Why is it that our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and his government want to shield multinationals, want to shield private companies when it comes to transparency on tax? This is something the Australian public has called for. Why is it that they want to continue to protect the big end of town? I do not believe there is any justification for private companies with over $100,000 million in revenue in any given year being shielded by the Turnbull government. Why should these companies not be held to account through proper scrutiny and transparency? How dodgy is this secret list? Surely, one of the companies on the now public list presents a conflict of interest for the whole of the Turnbull government. Turnbull and Partners is one of the companies on the secret list, and the sole directors are listed as Lucy and Malcolm Turnbull. Then, once the list becomes public, and only then, suddenly the PM says he has requested to come off the list. Good on people like Mr Turnbull making money, but it well and truly smacks of self-interest and a very, very big conflict of interest that Mr Turnbull and his government are hell-bent on protecting the Prime Minister and his partner Lucy Turnbull and others on the list. Senator Fifield: Acting Deputy President Reynolds, on a point of order, I think Senator Lines was coming precariously close to reflecting on a member from the other place talking about conflicts of interest. It might have got close to crossing the line. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Reynolds ): Minister, I concur. Would you like to rephrase your last comment, Senator Lines. Senator Moore: Acting Deputy President, on that point of order. We have seen that that is part of the standard debate. It actually came close to a conflict of interest; it was not actually making direct reflection. I make the point that the senator needs to be careful in her statements, but I do not think that she has actually crossed the line at this stage. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you. Senator LINES: Today we see that, perhaps, there is another reason why the Turnbull government is so intent on protecting those on that list: many of them are big donors to the Liberal Party. We have Dick Honan, whose Manildra company has contributed to the Liberal and the National parties. We have Michael Crouch's Zip companies, who have contributed to the Liberal Party. We have Mr Crouch himself who has contributed to the Liberal Party. We have the late Paul Ramsay's healthcare company, who has contributed the Liberal Party. We have the late Doug Moran, who has contributed to the Liberal Party. We have the late Richard Pratt who has contributed to the Liberal Party. They are all on the former secret list. That is one of the reasons why these lists need to be transparent so Australian taxpayers and Australian voters can make up their own minds. Of course there is another company on the list, and I am calling it a secret, dodgy list: 7-Eleven, a truly discredited company. They currently hold the record for making the top of another list, the top of the list for the highest ever record of underpayments to its own staff. To date, the Fels panel has uncovered $2.3 million of underpayments for just 101 workers. They are on the secret list that the government wants to continue to protect. Mr Fels told the Senate inquiry last week that they have written to 15,000 workers. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. The company 7-Eleven tells us it wants to be accountable, yet fiercely clings and seeks government protection to stay on the secret list. Last week at the Senate inquiry, we discovered a similar fraud to James Hardie. The company 7-Eleven has now set up an independent company called Independent Claims Pty Ltd to which it is going to funnel payments to workers who have been underpaid. That is a company that the government wants to protect and does not think it is okay somehow that the public and Labor demand transparency for companies like that. That is not good enough. Thankfully, that secret list, with all the people on it, is now out there for the public to see, along with the list of donors to the Liberal Party for the Australian voters to make up their own minds about. Right now, we have a government hell-bent on raising the GST—again, going after the Australian community and Australian workers—to a whopping 15 per cent, but steadfastly refusing to deal with tax transparency. Boy, have they got it wrong and the Australian public know it right now.