Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I again thank the member for North Sydney for his question on the resource super profits tax, because we all know how important tax reform is for the future strength of the Australian economy and, on top of that, for ensuring that working Australians get better super in the future and small businesses get a tax cut as opposed to a tax rise. Mr Speaker, can I say to the member for North Sydney, as he continues in this debate: it follows .as night follows day that there are going to be a range of opinions from leaders from both within the mining sector and beyond the mining sector in corporate Australia and, depending upon the branch of corporate Australia, their individual views on this will vary. You have seen comments in recent times by Roger Corbett. You have seen comments in recent times by a range of individuals like Bernie Fraser, who is the former Governor of the Reserve Bank and the former Secretary to the Treasury. You have seen a range of comments from all sorts of people engaged in this debate.

But what I would go back to is this: the underlining rationale for a resource rent tax of this nature is to provide an incentive for those companies, particularly those who are less profitable in their early years, to expand the basis of the industry by ensuring that they have appropriate forms of tax write-off for the way in which their investments are handled. That is what the rationale is for a tax based on profits rather than a tax based on volumes. That is why the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, supported the PRRT. Those opposite, led by the member for Groom yesterday, stood up in this place and said that the PRRT was somehow no longer supported by those opposite. They had 12 years to change that tax.

See this speech in context