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

I welcome the question from the Leader of the Opposition. It goes to the fundamental need to reform the tax system for the Australian mining industry and to use the revenues which would come from that reform to fund better super for all Australians, better tax cuts for all Australian businesses and, on top of that, better investment in Australian infrastructure for the future.

The Leader of the Opposition refers to the effective tax rates for particular mining companies and the industry at large. I draw his attention to a Treasury Roundup article released today which says that Treasury’s analysis shows that the resources sector faces an average company tax rate about 12 per cent lower than the average tax rate across all industries. This is because of the very generous tax concessions that the mining sector enjoys, which reduces their headline rate of company tax. A separate Treasury minute to the Treasurer notes that the average company tax rate for the mining sector was 17 per cent in the decade of 2004-05, compared with 19 per cent for construction, 27 per cent for transport and 29 per cent for finance. The Treasury minute notes that the findings in the Roundup article for mining are similar to those in the Markle and Shackelford 2009 paper. I suggest that the Leader of the Opposition acquaint himself with economic fact rather than simply act as the puppet of the MCA in this place.

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