Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that intervention—it was a long way from working! The member for Rankin was one of those hoping for the three lemons to line up on the Treasury poker machine when it came to the MRRT. But the only three lemons pulling the handle were Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and Mr Swan—and the member for Rankin, the abacus in the background, was getting the sums wrong,. And that is why we are in the pickle we are in now. It is so bad that even Labor senators and MPs cannot defend it. Goodness me, if anyone should be defending your own tax, it is them. The mining tax was never understood; it has never been sold adequately; it has been a failure in practice. 'Why on God's green earth we defend a tax that doesn't raise any money, I'll never understand.' Those were the words of not a Liberal politician but the outgoing Western Australian Senator Mark Bishop. Labor's Alannah MacTiernan, the member for Perth, called the tax 'a dud' in the caucus and fights for 'a welcome outbreak of common sense'. It's a pity that those opposite do not listen to the member for Perth. 'I think it'd be fair to say that the mining tax hasn't done the job it was designed to do.' Well said, member for Perth!

The repeal of the mining tax and its associated expenditure will improve the budget bottom line over the current forward estimates by nearly $13 billion. The repeal of the MRRT will also provide welcome relief on compliance costs, saving millions of dollars for small, medium and large enterprises. The member for McMahon was in here talking about the pressure on families and the pressure on businesses. I had a Salvador Dali moment earlier today up in the Federation Chamber when the member for Franklin was similarly worried about cost-of-living pressures on families and complaining about a 40c increase for a tank of fuel while at the same time those opposite are stopping the repeal of the carbon tax that has the potential to deliver $550 per year in welcome relief to Australian families. Similarly, they stand in the way of the repeal of this mining resource rent tax that has such a big effect on our important mining industry.

Fewer than 20 taxpayers have contributed to the net $340 million raised by the MRRT to date, but around 145 other miners have been required to submit MRRT instalment notices while making no net payments. You do not need to be the Tasmanian representative on the coalition's deregulation committee to understand that it is a bad situation when companies are filling in paperwork, complying with the regulatory burden, yet not paying any net tax. Why do we force that on business? Why do we force that increased obstacle—that 1,200 kilometre screwdriver from Canberra—on the mining companies in Tasmania, forcing them to do things for no actual purpose?

The government has been entirely transparent in its policy to repeal the mining tax. In fact, we fought to repeal the mining tax at both the 2010 and 2013 elections. When we make promises—the things we say we will do for the Australian people—people know we will deliver. We said we would stop the boats and there has not been a boat now for over six months. We said we would build the roads of the 21st century and there is $50 billion in the budget—the largest infrastructure spend in this country's history, and my state of Tasmania is getting $1 billion of that. We said we would fix the budget. The member for Rankin would know the figures. He would know why we have to fix the budget. In just six years they achieved $191 billion of deficits, $123 billion in the forward estimates—another period of deficits going forward—with gross debt due to rise to $667 billion. We are borrowing $1 billion every month just to pay the interest bill on Labor's debt.

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