Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 2) Bill 2019

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 2) Bill 2019

## What it does
This bill makes five separate changes to Australian tax, energy, and superannuation laws. It adjusts tax rules for redundancy and early retirement payments, fixes luxury car tax refund issues, gives the energy regulator new powers, lets people delete their financial data, and changes how interest is handled on lost superannuation money.

## Why it matters
Most of these are technical fixes that affect specific groups—people being made redundant, luxury car buyers, and those with lost super accounts. The consumer data right changes give you more control over your financial information, while energy regulator reforms aim to improve how electricity markets work.

## Key details
- **Redundancy payments**: From the day after this bill passes, redundancy and early retirement payouts get better tax treatment when aligned with pension age rules
- **Luxury car tax**: Refund rules change on the next quarterly date (1 Jan, April, July or Oct) after the bill passes
- **Lost superannuation**: Interest payments from the ATO on found super accounts will be handled differently—specifics depend on regulations to be written later
- **Energy regulator**: Gets expanded powers, though exact timing depends on a proclamation (announcement) the government will make later
- **Your financial data**: Immediately after passage, you get clearer rights to request deletion of your information held under consumer data rules

Official Description

Amends the: Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to extend the concessional tax treatment for genuine redundancy and early retirement scheme payments made to individuals who are 65 years or older provided the dismissal or retirement occurs before they reach pension age; A New Tax System (Luxury Car Tax) Act 1999 to increase the refund amount that eligible primary producers and tourism operators can receive when luxury car tax is borne on the supply or import of an eligible vehicle; Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to: increase the size of the board of the Australian Energy Regulator from three to five members and make changes to the operation of the board; and create a requirement that consumer data rules include an obligation on accredited data recipients to delete consumer data right data in response to a valid request from a consumer; Superannuation (Unclaimed Money and Lost Members) Act 1999 to enable the Commissioner of Taxation to pay interest on amounts held by the commissioner that are proactively reunified with a person’s active superannuation account; and Superannuation (Unclaimed Money and Lost Members) Regulations 1999 to prescribe the rate of interest payable on inactive low balance accounts and amounts proactively reunified by the commissioner.

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

18 Sept 2019

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

28 Oct 2019

Last checked by Crossbench

today

Full text indexed

today

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

Constituent votes

Voting is closed — this bill has been decided by parliament.

No votes yet.

No votes were recorded for this bill.

🔒 Voting closed — this bill has been decided by parliament