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

The government has kept the Australian economy strong during the global economic recession by preventing it from going into recession. The opposition said, ‘Do nothing.’ The opposition said that it was better in effect for the Australian economy to stand unprotected from the ravages of the global recession. The Leader of the Opposition said that his prescription for the future was to do what New Zealand did. What New Zealand did was to go into recession for 1¼ years.

Secondly, the Australian government is keeping the Australian economy strong, as underpinned by the delivery of the government’s budget, which halves net peak debt, which brings back the budget to surplus in three years time, three years ahead of time. This is a core achievement in keeping the economy strong. Despite all we saw with the three-ring circus last week from those opposite, masquerading as a budget reply, those opposite still cannot nominate the year in which they would return the budget to surplus.

Thirdly, the government is keeping the economy strong by continuing its program of implementing long-term reforms in the economy. That means reforms through the education revolution, reforms in nation-building infrastructure and reforms also in creating a seamless national economy—all of which are designed to lift productivity growth. That includes also the reform of the taxation system.

There is one core fact about our proposed reform of the tax system—that is, it asks mining companies to pay a fairer share to the Australian people for the resource which the Australian people ultimately own. Furthermore, it says that the revenue derived from that fairer share will then be used to fund better super for working families. It will also be used to fund tax cuts for all Australian businesses—for small business in particular—and will be used for investing in our future infrastructure needs.

For the economy at large, what this means is boosting our global competitiveness by bringing the Australian company tax rate down, boosting our national savings—a very big buffer in times of global economic crisis—and, on top of that, ensuring that we have a consistent national taxation regime for the mining industry, as opposed to the patchwork of royalties regimes which are based on volumes rather than profits, and that assists the mining industry to grow over time.

Mention has already been made in question time today of the contribution to our national interest of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I also refer to further comments she has made in the national economic interest, in this case, when it comes to this debate on tax. Yesterday she said the mining industry did not need to pay more tax. Contrary to what the WA Liberal Premier has said, which is that the mining industry is getting away with blue murder, and contrary to the fact that we have even the CEO of Woodside saying that mining companies can pay more tax, instead what we have is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition saying that, in effect—

See this speech in context