Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday before the business of the House caused me to pause my remarks on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013, I was talking about the downside of the mining tax with regard to what is happening in Western Australia. Out on the streets of Cowan and on the streets of Perth, the opportunities for those in the mining sector and the downstream benefits of the sector have been felt for some time. There has been a lot of talk about what has happened with the mining tax and the administrative and red-tape burdens that it has imposed upon so many of the miners. Coupled with the effects of the carbon tax, it has meant that more and more people, including many of the big employers in Western Australia, have been talking of sovereign risk. I have heard it from those in the mining sector who are increasingly looking for opportunities to invest and progress business in Canada and in Africa—and none of that needed to be the case. The people of Western Australia understood this very clearly, and we made it very clear in the election campaign that one of the key planks of our platform was the repeal of the mining tax. So there is no doubt that I endorse this bill to get rid of the mining tax so that we can start taking the brakes off one of the most successful industries in this country.

As I said before, we are talking about big employers, people who provide the livelihoods of people on the streets of Perth and so many other places around this country. Downstream benefits flow into spending in shops, and we should not underrate that at all. That is why it is important that we get rid of this mining tax. There is another element to this as well. This is an important move not just to take the handbrake off the mining tax but also to take away some of the outrageous extra spending that was attached to this tax. As we know, some $400 million has been raised across the life of the various iterations, the suggestions, the policies of this mining tax over the last five years—billions of dollars have been talked about—but of course that has not eventuated. It has been just another one of the stuff-ups of the former government over there.

But what we do know is that back in 2007 when they took over, we were something like $60 billion in the black. The country was in solid shape. Now, according to the Australian Office of Financial Management, we are $292 billion in the red, and there are other bills which talk about the unfortunate need to have to raise the spending cap limit.

One of the reasons it is so important to get rid of this mining tax is that there was some $16.7 billion of spending that was attached across the forward estimates. Again, as I said, that was up against the $400 million that has been raised by it so far. The grand concept of the Labor Party and the former government was to shell out the cash, and they could not even get the tax right. They were hurting one of our most successful industries, imposing huge amounts of red tape on that industry, and then spending money that they did not have, which is eerily familiar across so many portfolio areas—in fact, it was almost the reason for the existence of the other side when they were in government.

I remember when we were doing debates on the mining tax when it was being introduced by the Labor Party, I made some comments at that time about the schoolkids bonus and in relation to that spending. I remember former minister Mr Combet had a big go at me for suggesting that some people out there would actually use the schoolkids bonus for noneducational outcomes.

Following the first payment of the schoolkids bonus, I talked to a number of my school principals, none of whom reported an increase in voluntary fees. That was always going to happen when you have something called the 'schoolkids bonus', which is no longer linked to educational outcomes; you might call it 'schoolkids' bonus but when it does not come down to the fact that there needs to be a receipt for a school uniform or for books or anything like that, obviously people are going to look to the first thing that they need after that. So it really had nothing to do with schools; it had everything to do with just another handout, and a handout from a team that was just living beyond its means.

That is why, as the Australian Office of Financial Management says, that is why we approach $300 billion in debt now. There is a sense from the other side that you can just keep handing it out, just keep pushing it out there—whether it was trying to buy votes or trying to cover up the damage that the carbon tax was doing to the Australian economy and to the cost of living for individuals across this country, it was just a great way as far as they were concerned to mask problems. Some day, someone needs to pay.

The giving out of cash from the nonexistent profits of the mining tax, the borrowing of money to hand out those payments of $800 or $400, depending on whether it was for secondary school or primary school, was just something that one day someone was going to have to pay for. So now the rubber is hitting the road, someone needs to draw a line in the sand and say this country cannot afford this sort of stuff. It would be great if we could just hand out cash all the time and still keep the country in the black. It would be fabulous. We would all like that. But the reality is that it is just not like that and it is not going to be like that for a very long time.

We need to remember how long it took John Howard, Peter Costello and the careful management of the former Howard government to get things back in the black. It was not going to be overnight. Until that time, until this country starts living within its means again, there is going to have to be a downside to that. The piper needs to be paid. And it is important that right now we pass this repeal bill, get this $13.4 billion off the budget sheet over the forward estimates, to try to improve the future for the kids—who might ostensibly be getting things like the schoolkids bonus but as we know there was very little actual benefit for educational outcomes as a result of these handouts. Parents might get it today or last year or earlier this year, but the reality is that someone is going to have to pay, and it will be the taxpayers of the future as we try and get this country back into the black. So I say it is about time we really started by sorting this problem out, getting rid of the mining tax and the expenditure that was associated with it, so that we can start getting this country back living within its means.

I appreciate the opportunity today to make some comments on this bill and I without doubt give my commendation of the bill to the House.

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