Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Oxley leaves the chamber he asks me to be kind to him. After that speech, it would be difficult to be anything else out of sheer sympathy for his lack of understanding of what goes on in this chamber, in the Senate chamber or in fact anywhere in the business community in Australia. While he did say on a number of occasions during his speech how delighted he was to be able to speak on the measure, it is my understanding that he is the only one on that side of the House to do so—an indication of perhaps just how uncomfortable some on that side are about this legislation.

I am surprised, I have to say, because I believe in being what you are and that what you have been is what you are. I think it is unusual, to say the least, that someone who would know a lot about this bill and how it may affect those companies involved in the North West Shelf has not put his name up to speak on this bill. The member for Brand, with his background, would understand all the issues that I am about to raise in regard to how important are investment certainty and a consistent approach by government, and how the risks that resource companies take, both in exploring and developing resources, work. Yet all we heard from the member for Oxley was a rambling five-minute speech with a beg for mercy at its end. There was really no explanation of what the thinking was from the government behind this. We have, of course, heard the normal words: ‘This is a windfall profit that needs to be taxed. It is a loophole that needs to be taxed. These are big oil companies.’ Any time you are in trouble, roll out the words ‘big oil’. ‘They are naturally evil, evil companies’: that is understood by those on the other side of the House. The fact that some of these companies have Australian shareholders—some of whom are self-funded retirees saving the public purse the need for support—and the fact that these shareholders’ incomes will be affected by this decision are of no consequence to those on the other side of the House. They would no doubt categorise those self-funded retirees, and those working families who receive a dividend from these companies, as ‘undeserving rich’ or something similar.

The thing that worries me most is this continual refusal by those who sit opposite to give a categorical assurance to gas consumers. I know the member for Oxley got a little confused as to what that issue was about, but for his benefit, and for the benefit of those on that side of the House who do not understand the issue, the North West Shelf supplies all the gas in Western Australia for both domestic consumers and industry. It is a key source of Western Australia’s economic growth and neither the member for Oxley nor the Prime Minister when he was asked by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition nor Treasury apparently, now that they have been drawn into the debate, are able to give an answer as to whether or not this measure will increase the price of gas in the Western Australian domestic market.

I do not have an answer for that, but I am damned concern about it because, at a time when energy prices are increasing around the world, those people in Western Australia who see the company they buy their gas from suddenly facing this inordinately large tax bill would quite rightly want an answer to that question. So let us hear it. Let us hear it from the minister who has introduced this legislation or let us hear it from the resources minister or from the finance minister. Let us get an answer to that, because I think that it is an issue that needs an answer: is this measure, that has been introduced out of the blue and without consultation, going to increase the price of gas to industry consumers, to households in Western Australia and to the users of electricity in Western Australia, bearing in mind that most of the electricity in Western Australia is, of course, produced from gas?

There is absolutely no justification for saying that this is a fairness issue. The member for Oxley displayed an absolutely breathtaking lack of understanding of what it takes to get a resource project up and an absolutely breathtaking lack of understanding of what the conditions were back in 1975 when the then Whitlam government introduced excise. In 1977 when this measure was introduced there was a climate where the sorts of dollars involved in getting these projects off the ground and the risk that the company and its shareholders would have had to take would have meant that this gas would most likely still be lying in the ground on the North West Shelf. The tremendous growth that it has brought to not only Western Australia but also the nation as a whole would never have occurred. This measure was introduced solely as an incentive, an inducement, almost a bribe, to get the companies to take the risks that had to be taken to get this gas and its associated condensate and oil out of the ground, into the industry and into the export ships.

We have heard a lot from the Minister for Resources and Energy lately on a whole range of topics, all of which are very interesting. More pertinently, however, we hear his suggestion that in this day and age, with our low self-sufficiency in oil and petroleum products, we need to put in place more incentives to get companies to go out into what are known as ‘frontier regions’ to explore and to pursue new deposits. That is a good idea. It is not a new idea; in fact, it is a very old idea. When I was resources minister I did something similar and I certainly say, ‘All power to the arm of the resources minister if he is going to improve on that.’ If we go back in time we come back to this issue. This was put in place as a measure to encourage the development of a field which, as I say, is a long way from any major population centre in Western Australia, let alone the rest of Australia. Without this inducement, without this incentive, without this concession—which it is—that field probably would not have been developed.

The crude oil excise, as I said, was introduced by those renowned socialists and economic vandals, the Whitlam government. I am starting to wonder whether or not this sort of activity, which the Whitlam government was renowned for, is going to be copied by the current Rudd Labor government. The exemption on the condensate for excise was then introduced in 1977, around about the same time as world parity pricing for oil—and I only mention that as an aside, because even with world parity pricing the development of the North West Shelf would not have proceeded without other incentives.

What this bill proposes is typical of Labor, and it shows that they have not changed their way at all. They might call themselves economic conservatives, but underneath it all they are just simple, old-fashioned Labor—that is, they are socialist in policy, they attack the achievers of Australia and they attack the so-called big companies. Companies that were started decades ago in Australia are now apparently the targets of those who sit opposite. It just shows that the Labor Party have not changed at all since the Whitlam days. This bill is incomprehensible in the context of developments over the past decade that have seen Australia’s economy become the envy of the rest of the world. It is an economy driven by innovation and investment that has helped drive unemployment to record lows. But the con end of the bill is more the stuff of Third World economies, where investments are made by multinational companies and then snatched away by governments the moment they tap into a rich resource or become profitable.

I guess we could hope that this will be a oncer. We could hope that, in its dash for cash, this government has decided that this is just something it has to do. But this morning we awoke to headlines that another Labor government—one not very far from here that is running up an enormous debt, as Labor governments do—has decided to do the same thing to the coal industry in Queensland. Time will not permit me to speak on that issue; but it is inherent in the Labor philosophy that the moment anyone has anything it grabs it. It is a philosophy which, as I say, would be far more at home in a Third World country somewhere else in the world. The Rudd Labor government is again trashing Australia’s reputation and dragging it through the mud as well, just for good measure, all for the sake of a grubby tax grab. The government is showing it has absolutely no idea when it comes to steering the Australian economy or ensuring investment opportunities remain attractive. Stability in the way companies are treated is essential. Those companies are not just essential; they are absolutely essential. Are you going to cut me off?

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