Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to make comments with respect to that part of the report to which there has been a dissenting report lodged by the coalition members of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics. The chair has quite competently and ably run through the various schedules of the bill. I commend her for that. I would also like to associate myself from the very outset with the comments that she made about the good work that was done by the committee secretariat. They are a tireless bunch and are to be applauded for their efforts.

With respect to the dissenting report, I would like to especially focus on two schedules: schedule 1, native title benefits; and schedule 3, geothermal energy explorers. Schedule 1 basically deals with a multitude of evidence that was put to the committee. The dissenting remarks from coalition members deal with the fact that there was a very clear, unambiguous feeling from those that were present—not all, but certainly the majority of witnesses—that the report that has been formed and the conclusion that has been formed in the report is not consistent with their evidence—that being that the reforms seeking to be made by the bill would in fact be a retrograde step.

What is clear is that, when it comes to native title, Liberal members of the committee were particularly concerned with the evidence was put forward by the Minerals Council of Australia, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, the Chamber of Mines and Energy of Western Australia and others. All of this evidence indicated that the changes that are proposed in the bill would be a step that would actually make it more difficult, and not better, for those Indigenous Australians who hold native title.

It was best summarised perhaps by the opening statement that was put forward by the Minerals Council of Australia and was supported by BHP and the Chamber of Minerals and Energy. They said:

The Minerals Council of Australia supports the government's policy objective to deliver a more flexible and less legalistic approach to native title and to deliver practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians. We are committed to working with the government to ensure that agreement monies constructively contribute to socio economic outcomes for Indigenous Australians in line with the government's Closing the Gap policy objectives. While we support reforms to the taxation system to maximise the economic value of native title compensation and benefits packages, we are concerned that the proposed native title payment tax treatment may have a range of unintended consequences. Specifically, we consider that those amendments disincentivise investment in intergenerational wealth creation, as tax will be payable on any transfer of monies to future generations or on income earned. It disincentivises the provision of benefits under agreements to Aboriginal people who are resident in an area but who are unrelated to native title determination and it limits the main tax treatment to the defined beneficiaries.

That is important, because it pertains to the very attempt that native title seeks to encapsulate, which is to reward in an intergenerational sense those native title holders as a consequence of agreements that are put in place. One thing that struck Liberal members of the committee was the fact that the majority advisory report effectively outlined that the concerns that were raised by witnesses—in particular, those who represented the mining lobby—were 'unlikely to eventuate because native title agreements are structured to prevent it occurring, and this feature of the contracts has been largely driven by the mining companies themselves.'

We find it passing strange that the very agreements that the majority advisory report seeks to rely upon, which are put forward by the mining industry in the main, are in fact by the same authors—that is, the mining industry—who say, 'We've got genuine concerns about this because it is going to result in negative impacts on intergenerational wealth transfer.' So, we think it is a bit of a case of government members of the committee wanting to have their cake and eat it too, to claim that the mining lobby is raising genuine concerns and also that they do not need to be concerned about what the mining lobby says because the mining lobby has already taken care of it in agreements. Liberal members found that counterintuitive.

The final point I would make is in relation to schedule 3, and I reiterate again that the coalition is of course opposed to the minerals resource rent tax and will repeal the tax should we be fortunate enough to be elected at the next general election. Given that this is in fact associated expenditure from the MRRT, we are opposed to it.

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