Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I have not said a word and I am already getting heckled by the opposition. It shows the tone that they present in this House. I rise to provide a summary in terms of debate around the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013.

I must say, it has been very interesting and instructive to listen to the debate that has been put forward in this chamber throughout the debate surrounding this particular bill. In particular I take interest in the contribution made by the shadow Treasurer. It was quite fascinating to see the way the shadow Treasurer—and, indeed, through the shadow Treasurer, the Labor Party—continues to not appreciate in any way shape or form the serious challenges that lie before the government to repair the damage that was initiated by the Labor Party.

In particular I was fascinated that the shadow Treasurer, in his contribution here at the dispatch box, made comments—a number of which were quite erroneous—with respect to the operation of the MRRT. I was quite fascinated to hear the contribution—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

I take the interjection from the shadow Treasurer about the contribution that I made on The Nation. The Labor Party has the view that their minerals resource rent tax had no impact in terms of the mining sector. I have an interesting article from The Sydney Morning Herald, from 24 August 2012. The headline is: 'Taxes a drag on coal, Kloppers warns investors'. I just want to highlight that Marius Kloppers was of course a CEO of the Big Australian, as BHP is known. The lead paragraph says:

BHP Billiton head Marius Kloppers has told European investors that Australia's carbon and mining taxes have helped to render the nation's coal industry unworthy of further investment at this time.

For the benefit of the member opposite, I will table that article. It is quite extraordinary. You see, the head of the Big Australian makes it crystal clear that Labor's minerals resource rent tax was an impediment to investment in this country. But Labor continues to deny it. What's more, they even made comment—and I quote the shadow Treasurer—who said:

On this side of the House—

That is of course the opposition side—

we believe that a profits based tax on profits from the minerals sector—minerals which belong to the Australian people—is a good reform. That is not to say that it does not have its challenges in implementation, it does not have its challenges in design.

There is an understatement if ever I heard one. If there is an understatement today, the prize has to go to the shadow Treasurer.

The shadow Treasurer talks about the minerals resource rent tax that the Labor Party introduced. When it was first introduced, it was meant to raise $49.5 billion. Then Labor said, 'Well, we anticipate that it will actually be a little less than that, and we anticipate that it will raise somewhere around $24 billion'. But then, what do we actually know? What did Labor do? Labor, after announcing their minerals resource rent tax, hitched a whole amount of expenditure in relation to it, some $16 billion worth of expenditure.

The extraordinary thing about Labor's contribution and the so-called challenges in design and challenges in terms of implementation—the understatement that came from the shadow Treasurer—is that as a consequence of the poor implementation and the poor design of Labor's minerals resource rent tax we actually have a situation where, by abolishing this act, this tax, we will be saving Australian taxpayers $13.4 billion. That is a net saving of $13.4 billion. So it is a tax that was initially meant to raise $49.5 billion but in net terms has actually only raised $400 million; and by abolishing it we save Australians some $13 billion. The shadow Treasurer say, 'Look there's a couple of challenges around design and implementation, but they are just little challenges'—

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