Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are few things more dangerous than a government in hegemony with a ton full of cash inherited from a previous Treasurer. In fact, there is only one thing more dangerous, and that is a government on the skids, with ashen faced government MPs watching as their popularity plummets, with no money left in the kitty to continue the spin. I, for a moment, want to acknowledge the staff in the Prime Minister’s office watching this debate today, with a far more difficult job to do. They have no money left and they are still trying to maintain their boss’s desperate spin.

We have had two government speakers. The first of them was reading out a stump speech about investment in major infrastructure. The second was this member of the government talking about compulsory superannuation when the debate today is about superannuants—a slightly different suffix. Superannuants are mostly individuals, in this country, who are self reliant and hardworking. They have had a career of saving and they are watching it being wiped out by a Prime Minister desperate to cling to some flotsam to protect his political career.

All this Prime Minister wants is an exit strategy and I feel for those on the other side of this chamber—intelligent, hardworking MPs—hoping to be able to see their policies become reality but watching those policies erode in front of them. We just need a little bit of factoid here, don’t we, because what we are talking about is a mineral tax that is wiping out the wealth of superannuants in this country. What we are talking about is a mining sector that knows full well that it is an internationalised sector. They rely on the investments of large companies that Ian Harper from the Melbourne Business School will tell you are subject to internal price transfer. And the tougher you make it for them here in Australia the more they will invest in their mines in Chile or Africa.

There has been a distortion in the debate that these are somewhat non-renewable resources slipping through our fingers like sand and that we have to grab a few dollars for our labour base before it all disappears. The argument is complete froth and bubble, because these minerals are going to be there for decades to come. What we need is some form of security and sovereign knowledge that there is security to invest in Australia. That has been eroded in weeks, and that is shown in the stock market—through shares, dividends and superannuation values—and it is shown in the attitude of ordinary Australians towards our Prime Minister.

In areas with little to do with the mining sector, Australians will tell you they are nervous about this supertax grab. And they are nervous because they know deep down there are superannuants who invested in a block of land at Emerald in the hope that they might be able to build there and solve the housing crisis, but they have had contracts fail. They are nervous because they have invested in this sector and just hope for a stable return that the coalition offered them over 12 years, a stable fiscal base—not this ridiculous policy plinth that is simply a grab at tax, as if it is the only way to fund this government’s foolish spending.

It is this government that wasted so much debating time in this chamber saying that in some way this is funding the superannuation increase from nine to 12 per cent. Let us be honest. It is a $9 billion tax grab to fund $200 million of tax concessions, and the rest just feeds its spending addiction. It is a spending addiction on that side of the House that must be stopped somehow. What we have is a denial about reality. There is no willingness on that side of the chamber to talk about company tax. There is a simple rule in business: if you make more money as an entity you pay more company tax. You cannot get away from the fact that mining taxes have gone from $2.6 billion to $21.9 billion over the past decade.

This is not a debate about whether mining companies can pay more tax or not. This is a debate about confidence in this government to run our economy, and that is why it is in so much trouble. The pure fact is Australians do not trust a government advertising campaign that cannot even be honest that these mining companies pay company tax. I would be deeply disturbed if I were an Iluka shareholder being misrepresented on Q&A by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, that they will somehow be better off under this tax. I would be concerned about companies like Fortescue, if I held shares in them, predominantly Australian based which has little option to do what large multinationals do and that is shift effort internationally. And I would be worried about Mount Gibson and Atlas and other firms that thought they had sovereign stability but instead have Rudd sovereign risk.

Australians were yearning in 2007 for some form of spin instead of substance, for some promises without delivery, and of course for rhetoric without action, because they had not had that for 12 years. They have had two years of that now and look where it has left us. It has left us with uncontrollable, unaccountable spending and a Rudd government on the slide. (Time expired)

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