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

I have not yet seen this morning’s report from the Somali stock exchange. Brazilian resource stocks, which are actually host to a company called Vale, in the period since the announcement of the government’s tax reform on the mining industry have collapsed nine points and the Australian resources are down three points. I simply go back to the core question of fact as opposed to fear. It would be very useful if the member for Curtin, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, actually engaged in a little bit of factual research rather than simply xeroxing the releases that have been produced by others. Again I go back to that great protest in Perth along the lines of: ‘What do we want? Tax cuts for billionaires. When do we want it? As soon as the MCA wants.’

Mr Speaker, you know something, we are actually on about the national interest here. We are on about tax reform for the nation. We are on about how you get better super for working families. We are on about how you bring about tax cuts for 2.4 million Australian businesses. We are on about how you give tax cuts to the corporate rate for 770,000 Australian businesses and we are on about how we deliver infrastructure for the good people of Western Australia, the good people of Queensland and the other resource producing regions of the country. That is what we are on about. Mr Speaker, can I say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: just pay a little bit of attention to the facts before you stand up at the dispatch box and seek to promote fear.

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