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

I was talking about the views of 20 respected economists and I wanted to go through some of those views. This is a very important debate for Australia—for how we reform our economy as we go forward, for how we grow our economy, for how we invest in our businesses, for how we invest in infrastructure and for how we grow our national savings. Those 20 respected economists treat this issue very seriously, and it is worth while debating it in this House. I want to quote from them. This is what they say:

… it is desirable to levy a charge for access to publicly-owned mineral resources, in addition to normal corporate income tax.

                  …              …              …

… this is an appropriate time for them to adjust to a more efficient and equitable system of sharing the value of those rights.

Yesterday we were talking about the fact that these minerals were non-renewable, that they could only be mined once. What we have to do is extract the maximum value for the Australian people as we go forward—to reform our economy, to invest in our economy and to ensure our prosperity as we go forward. This is a very serious issue and it should be treated seriously by those opposite. The economists go on to say:

There is no reason to expect a net contraction in mining over the longer term as a result of replacing royalties with the proposed resource rent tax.

This is because a tax on economic rent of non-renewable resources is a more efficient revenue than taxing mining production.

These are very serious points, but they do not seem in any way to be accepted by those opposite.

Mr Quiggin went on today to make this observation, which was very pertinent to some of the points that were made in earlier questions. He said:

… there’s no reason at all to think that the tax is going to affect world prices of these minerals and therefore that that’s going to feed, in any way, into Australian consumer prices.

On the other hand, there’s potentially some benefit for consumers in the offsetting reductions in the general rates of company tax.

So it certainly is depressing to see this kind of scare tactic put up. It really is just to shorten the debate.

Those opposite do not want to acknowledge that we are also moving to a corporate rate tax cut. It is very embarrassing for the Liberal Party to be in this House opposing a corporate rate tax cut whilst at the same time wanting to impose their own. It is very embarrassing for the party that is supposed to be representing business in this House to be opposing sensible reforms to the taxation system for corporates and, most particularly, for small business. But it is more embarrassing for them because they are out there on their own—with Mr Palmer—opposing the fact that we need this profits based tax in the first place.

There have been some spectacular interventions in this debate, and probably none more so than the one this morning from the Leader of the Opposition where he said that they should be paying less tax. That is a view that is not shared by many. It is not even shared by the Minerals Council of Australia. Mitch Hooke said this morning, ‘The concept of a profits based tax is absolutely a tick.’ So even the Minerals Council of Australia is in the cart for a profits based tax, but of course the member for Groom is not and the Leader of the Opposition is not. It just shows you how short-sighted they are, how negatively political they are and how they are not interested in our national interest. They are simply stuck in the past and incapable of coming to grips with the big economic challenges facing this nation. We on this side of the House will do everything we can to ensure that Australians get a fair share of their non-renewable resources so we can invest in jobs, growth and prosperity for Australia.

See this speech in context