Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson says the state owns the minerals. Do you know who I think owns the minerals? The Australian people—West Australians, Queenslanders, Australians. I respect the fact that the member for Dawson has been elected but he is a new member in this place and what he should understand is that a lot of Australians do not actually think that these resources belong to just one company or several companies. Companies operate under a licence and, when you use finite resources, they are gone. What is left after that? I admire Australian mining companies. I have dealt with many of them. I admire multinational mining companies, maybe not as much as the member for Dawson but I accept they are very important in the Australian economy. What I also know is that when they move on they move on. I have worked as a union rep in Townsville and when the company moves on there is not a lot of love left after they have gone. We on this side know that a mining boom does not last forever. In an uneven economy we want to spread the prosperity of the mining boom. So, what are we going to do? We are going to decrease company tax for all 2½ million businesses in Australia, and not just look after the mining sector.

We want to make sure that superannuation goes up from nine to 12 per cent, because we think it is important that when people retire after working for 40 years they have enough money to retire on.

Wyatt Roy interjecting—

I know that that is not a big issue for the member for Longman. He will have a distinguished career in life, I have no doubt. But what I do know is that if you are baby boomer, born at some time between 1945 and 1965, you may work for 30 or 40 years but chances are you will not have had the chance in many cases to save enough money to retire. Whilst we do have the safety net of the age pension, which this government has increased—

Wyatt Roy interjecting—

I know the age pension does not worry the member for Longman, but it worries a lot of other people in his electorate.

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