Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra for her question. I know that she is vitally interested in jobs and the strength of the Australian economy and she understands the importance to the modern Australian economy of the resources investment pipeline. Australians, as I said yesterday, would be watching with some anxiety circumstances in the eurozone and particularly circumstances affecting Greece. People may well have noted the lack of a clear new plan emanating from a meeting of European leaders being reported in the Australian media today. From this, they would be right to conclude that there are significant headwinds in the global economy.

But the Australian economy is walking tall despite these difficulties in the global economy. Today we have further evidence of just how our economy is walking tall in these global circumstances, and that is the fact that new figures show the resources investment pipeline is now nearly half a trillion dollars—half a trillion dollars of new investment flowing into our country, into our resources sector. This is giving our nation a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that the mineral wealth within our grounds is fairly shared across the economy.

As a Labor government we are committed to doing just that—through the minerals resource rent tax, which will ensure that we can boost investment in infrastructure and keep feeding the boom. The minerals resource rent tax means we can provide small businesses, who work so hard for this nation, with a tax break. We believe that the mums and dads who operate those small businesses are entitled to a fair go and a little bit of tax relief—and we will provide it. And we will ensure too that Australians around the nation see for themselves the benefits of this boom. Many families are saying they understand that the circumstances and fundamentals of the Australian economy are strong but they want to know where their share is. We are determined to give them their share through increased family payments whilst we work with Australians on cost-of-living pressures through our new schoolkids bonus. Of course, we have been opposed every step of the way in trying to ensure that the minerals boom is fairly shared across this nation. But as a government we are determined that Australian families will feel the benefits of the mineral wealth within their grounds at this time in our nation's history.

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