Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

He will interject anything other than the words ‘regional partnerships’. He will not interject the words ‘regional partnerships’, because he knows precisely where that will lead. I appreciate that he said he felt sorry for me. I can assure the Leader of the Nationals that the pity is reciprocated, but perhaps for different reasons.

The arguments that have just been put to the chamber against the Resource Super Profits Tax were based on one assumption—that there is no such thing as royalties. All the arguments that the Leader of the Nationals put to the chamber just now presumed that there is no such thing as royalty payments, presumed that we currently do not have taxes based on volume and presumed that the tax being introduced based on profit is not replacing a tax based on volume. As long as the Leader of the Nationals wants to keep the debate within that frame, he knows he is characterising something in a way that is not true—not true at all. One critical part of the Resource Super Profits Tax is that it is a tax on profit not on volume.

They also at the same time decided to ignore what the tax will be used to pay for. You will never hear the opposition say that their stance is preventing a reduction in company tax. There is a reduction in company tax on the table, from 30 per cent to 28 per cent, and a head start on those reductions for small businesses. You will not hear them say a word about the general tax relief which is available as a result, nor will you hear them refer to the instant write-off of assets of up to $5,000 or to the infrastructure fund.

You will not hear the opposition refer to the benefits that are available as a result, because they want to characterise this debate with something which they know full well is untrue. We have seen this in their characterisation of fertiliser prices. They pretended that there is no such thing as a world fertiliser price. They pretended that prices would be passed on to farmers. They knew that was untrue.

Debate interrupted.

See this speech in context