Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

We have just seen the government's economic illiteracy writ large. Here we have a government that is arguing—at the same time, in the same debate—that this tax is hurting industry so much that industry is closing down, and also that it is not raising any revenue. You cannot argue those two things in the same week, let alone in the same speech, as we have just heard from the member the Paterson. The member for Paterson listed a number of mines where there are job losses and somehow tried to say that the tax, which he argued is not raising any revenue, is at the same time the cause of those job losses. That is absurd.

The job losses are due to commodity prices. For example, 18 months ago, coking coal was $330 per tonne. Today it is $120. That is what is having an impact on those mines. The stupidity we have just heard argued does nothing in terms of proper analysis, which should be about building confidence in our industries. The problem for this government is not just that they talked down the national economy every day, when the coalition turned into the 'noalition' while they were in opposition; the worse sin is that they are talking down the economy now that they are in government. What message does that send to those who trade with us internationally? And we heard about the triple-A rating on expenditure; no, the triple-A rating is the one given by the three agencies to the former federal Labor government. We hear a lot of rhetoric from those opposite about the MRRT and this legislation but we hear nothing from the member for Paterson or from any of the other speakers for the government about royalties and the jacking up that has occurred from the Western Australian, Queensland and New South Wales Tory governments. They are jacking up the royalties but we hear nothing from them about that.

When you get rid of all the political rhetoric from those opposite, there is a fundamental question that this legislation relates to. It is whether Australians should have a share of the profits gained from the sale of the minerals that every Australian owns. In other words, when it comes to deposits of iron ore or coal that formed over millions of years due to complex geological processes, should governments simply hand them over to their mates in big business? Or when the possession of these minerals drives mega profits, should governments apply tax on those mega profits on behalf of the community? Labor's position is simple: our minerals are part of our nation's Commonwealth. And the Commonwealth should benefit every Australian. We believe we are blessed with these resources and that we should all benefit. There is a particular reason as well; it can only be dug up once—we are talking about non-renewable resources.

Businesses that take the risk to extract and market these resources deserve to reap benefits from their investment. But since the profits come from assets that are owned collectively, Labor believes that Australians have the right to a share of these profits in times of boom. So when the vagaries of international commodity prices and exchange rates deliver mega profits, the people of Australia should receive a share of those windfall profits. It is very simple.

We also believe that some of the proceeds of this huge boom should be invested in spreading the benefit to other sectors of the economy so that when the non-renewable resources are delivering less productivity to the national economy, the other sectors can fill the void. It is a fundamental proposition of sensible economics—one that was recognised by Ken Henry—which is why you had this concept coming out of the Henry tax review.

So I will be voting against this bill because this bill is more about simply vindicating the Prime Minister's three-word slogans and the pre-election scaremongering than it is about sensible policy. The Prime Minister ran a whole campaign based upon three-word slogans. They did have a plan to get into government but they do not have a plan to govern, and we see that in the chaotic way in which this government's non-agenda has been out there blowing in the breeze since they were elected last September.

Our position is based upon findings in the tax review. Ken Henry argued that current resource charging arrangements levied at export volumes through royalties were inefficient. It would be more efficient to tax profits. It is a pretty fundamental policy of serious structural reform. Indeed the big miners who are paying this tax said they could afford to pay this tax. They were not out there calling for these discussions.

So there was a range of benefits and this legislation seeks to make a number of changes. It allows for the removal of the significant tax breaks that were there for small businesses in the loss carry-back scheme. The policy intent of this change was to spread the benefits of the mining boom to parts of the economy outside the mining sphere. It was pretty sensible policy. There was help for low-income earners via the low-income superannuation contribution to provide up to $500 to augment the retirement savings of Australians earning up to $37,000. This was of particular value to women in our community. There will be 2.1 million Australian women who will be affected by this change. Why is it that there are all these tax incentives for high-income earners to contribute to their superannuation, but low-income Australians do not have the same incentives? What that means is in the longer term that is one of the structural problems with the budget. As we have an ageing population, it makes sense to boost superannuation, boost retirement savings and, therefore, make the intergenerational impact of the budget more secure in years to come.

There is the schoolkids bonus to help Australian families with the costs of education with payments of $410 for primary school students and up to $820 for high school students. Again it is about broadening the opportunity and broadening the benefits. We want to make sure that every child in this nation has access to the same opportunity. The schoolkids bonus is designed to help parents out. As we all know, many families in the electorates we represent struggle at the beginning of the year to buy textbooks, to buy clothes, to get their kids to school. So that is going as well. The impact of that is very significant indeed.

So we have with this legislation small businesses missing out, families missing out and low-income earners, particularly women, in the community missing out. We had from those opposite this bizarre logic of saying it is not raising enough money at the same time as they were arguing that it is raising too much money and destroying the industry.

But, of course, the whole design of the tax is about profits, and what we have been through in recent years is the construction phase across a range of resources projects. We have not moved into the production phase, and the profits come when you sell the resources, not when you build the infrastructure to extract the resources. One of the things that we were very keen on doing to smooth out the cycle was to make sure that infrastructure in regional communities could be built—projects like the Peak Downs Highway in North Queensland.

We know from going to communities like Karratha and Port Hedland. As the Minister for Regional Development and Infrastructure I had a firsthand look at the problems that exist in those communities—problems where they rely upon a fly-in, fly-out workforce, problems where there is no community infrastructure in terms of schools, hospitals or childcare centres. I opened a childcare centre in Karratha and asked them: 'How's it going? When will you be full?' They said, 'We were full on the day it was announced.' They were queuing up to put their name down to get access to child care in that community.

And, of course, the impact on families of the failure to have infrastructure in those local communities is significant indeed. We need to make sure both hard infrastructure like roads, railways and ports and also community based infrastructure benefit those communities as well, because they have such a major impact. With regard to the Regional Infrastructure Fund I have heard the government saying there were not enough resources put in to build the infrastructure that was being bought with the money. They completely failed to understand the fundamental concept, which is that you smooth out the cycle. You build the infrastructure with projects like Gateway WA to alleviate the impact that the growth in the resources sector has had on the roads and infrastructure around Perth Airport, Peak Downs Highway or the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia. There was work in a range of projects to assist resources, including a project like Maldon-Dumbarton in the area of the Illawarra in New South Wales—a project building railway line to the port that has been abandoned by those opposite just as it was abandoned when the Liberals took over the New South Wales government after it had begun.

How is it that a government that says it understands anything about future productivity is abandoning in the budget a project that would directly boost the ability of the industry to get goods to the port of Wollongong through the rail system rather than on the roads? A project that was abandoned in the budget is more efficient, better for the environment, better for road safety and better for the national economy.

Our view is pretty clear: mineral wealth is common wealth. By that I mean that all Australians own a share of our mineral resources. We cannot all dig them up and sell them—that is the business of mining companies—but governments can and should ensure that, when international commodity prices and exchange rate fluctuations drive profits to record levels, the Australian people can share in that good fortune. Governments should use that money to enhance equity and justice while also building the infrastructure required to generate further prosperity down the track. That is Labor's principle. The government, on the other hand, is happy to allow the full benefit of windfall profits to go straight into the pockets of just a few people. That is an irresponsible approach. It denies the community any benefit from its stake in the common wealth of our nation. While it might suit the government's anti-union, pro-big business rhetoric, it is the antithesis of nation building. We can only sell these assets once and we should ensure that, when they are sold, something comes back to the national interest.

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