ATO boss facing rare Senate contempt order over JobKeeper list
Tax commissioner Chris Jordan faces prison time or $5000 in fines after being referred to a powerful Senate committee over his refusal to make public a list of firms banking JobKeeper payments.
The ATO boss could be found in contempt of the Senate after crossbench dealmaker Rex Patrick insisted Mr Jordan hand over the full list of recipients firms with turnover of more than $10 million, part of his push for transparency and paybacks from the $90 billion program.
Possible contempt of Parliament: Commissioner of Taxation Chris Jordan. Alex Ellinghausen
In a rare vote on Tuesday afternoon, the Senate agreed to refer Mr Jordan to the privileges committee for failing to obey a lawful order of the Parliament.
Mr Jordan had asked Parliament not to be required to release the information, telling the Senate it would not be in the public interest for traditional taxpayer confidentiality to be abandoned.
The argument was rejected. Now the Labor-led parliamentary oversight committee will have to consider if Mr Jordan committed contempt.
Under parliamentary privileges laws, he faces possible punishments including $5000 or jail time.
Senator Patrick said the vote delivered two wins.
“Today the Senate found its mojo,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
“One win is for the Senate’s ability to conduct oversight, in that it is likely the documents requested will have to be handed over.
“It’s also a win for the Senate asserting its right to conduct oversight and to obtain documents from the executive.
“In the US Senate, there would never have been a refusal, because they deal with these things in a much more strict fashion than the Australian Senate.”
Senator Patrick said he expected Mr Jordan would provide the list to resolve the growing stand-off, but the sega was set to play out over coming weeks if he refused.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg rallied government MPs and business groups to oppose the transparency push by Senator Patrick and Labor, but the referral was confirmed with support of Pauline Hanson and One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts.
Mr Jordan has been contacted for comment.
Opposition assistant minister for treasury Andrew Leigh has campaigned for profitable firms to repay JobKeeper, slamming the Coalition over billions in waste.
Earlier this month, a Treasury review said adding a clawback mechanism into the JobKeeper rules would have harmed the nation’s economic recovery. Analysis showed $27 billion was paid to businesses whose turnovers either increased or did not decline by 30 per cent or 50 per cent.
The independent Parliamentary Budget Office found more than $13 billion in JobKeeper payments were given to businesses that recorded increases in revenue.
Dr Leigh on Tuesday described JobKeeper as an important program that had been badly implemented.
“A program that was meant to be about keeping battlers in jobs ended up delivering too much cash through to billionaire shareholders,” he said.