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

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question because at the very core of the budget delivered last night is a plan to spread the opportunities of the mining boom to every corner of our country and to every postcode in our country. We are responding to the challenges posed by the mining boom which mean that some parts of the economy are stronger than others. And they mean that there will be a patchwork economy out there. Many small businesses and many towns which are not in the fast lane coming from the mining boom will face challenges because of this very strong investment phase into which we are entering. That lies at the very core of all the propositions put forward in the budget last night and goes to the very core of why the government put in place the mining resource rent tax, which will provide a stream of revenue to enable us to spread the opportunities of the boom to every corner of our country and to every postcode. That revenue—opposed by those opposite who have the ridiculous proposition that that somehow the mining companies are paying too much tax—will, first of all, mean that Australians get fair value for the minerals they own 100 per cent and, secondly, to give a helping hand and a lift up to those sectors of the patchwork economy that are not in the fast lane. So the revenue we are using from the mineral resource rent tax goes to invest in infrastructure, particularly in mining regions. That is very important economically. Also, we are going to assist those on low incomes with additional superannuation for all workers whose income is under something like $37,000. The member asked: what do we think about a sovereign wealth fund? With our superannuation accounts we have eight million of them in this country—a creation of far-sighted Labor governments which understood that we need, as a country, to save more. We want to boost in the superannuation savings of low-income workers in our community. And remarkably that is opposed by those opposite.

The other thing we want to do—and this is really important—is give some tax breaks to small business. With the revenue from the minerals resource rent tax we want to give a tax cut to small business, spreading it right around the country. It is very important to give that $5,000 instant asset write-off to small business because that really assists small business with their cash flow. In the budget last night we announced an addition when we said we would allow businesses to write-off the first $5,000 in the purchase of a vehicle like a ute. That will help a lot of contractors out there who are not in the fast lane and a whole lot of those tradies. We have a comprehensive plan to deal with the patchwork economy, to deal with the challenges that come from mining boom mark II, to spread the opportunities of it right around the country, not just with the opportunities coming from the resource rent tax but also in the skilling of our workforce because we need people in every corner and every postcode of this country to be the beneficiaries and the participants in the mining boom. All of the initiatives in the budget are aimed at that.

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