Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Kingsford Smith, who has just addressed the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013, comes to this place from the Senate. I know he means well. I know that in the Senate they do things differently than we do in the House of Representatives. He talked about investment, jobs creation and growth. What he perhaps does not realise, because he has been in the upper house, is that all we ever saw in this place from his government in the last term and the term before that was wrecking and vandalism of investment, jobs creation and growth. His party, which sat on the treasury bench, did everything they could to stunt growth, to rid particularly rural and regional Australia of jobs and to drive investment overseas. The MRRT sent a message to overseas companies—and the Nationals are in favour of good foreign investment—and so much potentially good foreign investment was driven to countries such as Africa because Australia's wealth creation ability was put at risk by the Labor government. Shame on them for doing so!

The minerals resource rent tax was flawed from the outset. From its inception in the final days of the first tenure of the member for Griffith, Kevin Rudd, at the helm of the Labor government the MRRT was poorly implemented. It was a haphazard policy. We all know that. Labor know that. They understand it but for political reasons they are now pushing to stop us from carrying out our mandate. We went to the 7 September election seeking a mandate to repeal the carbon tax—and Labor is all against that—and to repeal the mining tax—and Labor is all against that. We need to get on with the job of removing the debt and the deficit that Labor has saddled this country with. The member for Canberra is nodding. She understands that that is what we are about and that is what this country needs. It is desperate for us to get rid of the mess that Labor has placed us in.

For this reason the coalition are now keeping our promise. That will be news to Labor, who do not keep their promises. We on this side, on the coalition side, do keep our promises to the Australian people. We will abolish the mining tax and get rid of the toxic carbon tax and put downward pressure on the costs of living for average Australians, Mr and Mrs Average, families, small businesses, medium-sized businesses and large businesses. Do you know what the definition of a 'small business' is, Member for Gippsland?

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