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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, because part of keeping the Australian economy strong lies in continued reform. That is why we are seeking to reform the economy and boost investment in skills, in infrastructure and in productivity, and also to prosecute a program of regulatory reform across the Australian economy. Part of that reform is tax reform, and part of tax reform is mining tax reform. That means a system which is based on profits, not volume, and profits, not production, as was confused by the Leader of the Opposition the other day, and as I notice the former Leader of the Opposition backs in his remarks today and the member for Goldstein backed the other day as a rational way to impose a tax regime on mining projects, as has occurred with the offshore regime since the introduction of the petroleum resource rent tax in the mid-1980s. We stand, therefore, for the continued reform of the Australian economy, to keep our economy strong. Those opposite, it seems, have one attitude to economic policy and that is it—simply to abandon the field and take up the sectional interests of elements of the mining industry.

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