Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for his very important question. There is growing support for the resource super profits tax. Everybody on this side of the House recognises that there is a rolled-gold case for more tax to be paid. But you never hear those on that side of the House even whisper about the need for the Australian people to get a fairer share of the bounty of this country. The Leader of the Opposition was sitting in his office and all the mining companies came in. At that stage he did not have a word to say about it. They told him what to say, and you have seen the outcome here today. The opposition are simply doing what they have been told to by the mining companies. There is going to be a lot of loud noise made by those who are opposed to this tax, by those who are opposed to Australians sharing in the wealth.

At the beginning of this decade, one dollar in three of mining company profits came through royalties and charges. At the end of the decade, it was one dollar in seven. But they do not care that the Australian people have missed out on a fair share of that. That much is obvious. There is one body that said very early that we needed a resource rent tax in this community. In fact, that was said by the Minerals Council. The Minerals Council, in their submission to the independent tax inquiry, had this to say:

There is a strong argument to reform the basis of determining royalty payments to a profits based criteria from a revenue one.

That was the mining sector; that was the Minerals Council of Australia. Of course, this is now widely recognised not only here but around the world. This is what the OECD has had to say:

Whenever there is a period in which there is a price spike or a price hike then it is legitimate for a sharing of that bonanza and that benefit.

That is what everybody on this side of the House believes. Nobody on the other side of the House believes that. And today we have had Roger Corbett, appointed by those opposite to the Reserve Bank board, saying:

These are resources owned by Australians and Australia should extract from those resources the best possible advantage it can.

Who can disagree with that? Everybody over there disagrees with that perfectly reasonable statement. And you have got Michael Hawker, a director of Macquarie Group, who had this to say:

A royalties tax on the assets of Australia is a good policy position because the capital of the country should be there not just for this generation but for multiple generations.

Who believes that? Everybody on this side of the House believes that. But it is not just people in business; it is many economists. This is what Mr John Freebairn had to say on 12 May:

It is actually going to increase the level of investment and employment down the track, contrary to what the big mining companies are claiming.

You have got the IMF, who had this to say:

There is a case for this tax to promote investment and secure for government higher shares of resource rent in profitable projects.

And we have Professor Garnaut. What has he had to say?

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