Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

that there are a number of other initiatives that we are delivering on that are going to help regional Australia.

The starting point is to get rid of the carbon tax. That is what we promised and that is what we have delivered. That means that regional Australia, as well as the whole of Australia, is going to benefit from lower costs of energy, and is going to benefit by not having a comparative disadvantage in exports with other nations.

The other thing we are doing which is part of the budget is: we are determined to get rid of the mining tax. As we speak right now, the repeal of the mining tax is passing through the Senate. Why so? Because we went to two elections promising to get rid of that insidious tax. Only the Labor Party could come up with a tax that raises no money.

Opposition members interjecting—

Sorry—it raises one per cent of what it promised. The member for Lilley and former Treasurer used to say: 'the mining tax is about redistributing the wealth of Australia'. That tax was so successful it redistributed 2½c to every Australian over the last 12 months. The problem is that it has $17 billion of expenditure against it. So I commend the member for Lilley for putting in the page of history a new benchmark on taxation: a tax that destroys jobs, a tax that destroys business, a tax that raises no money. We are getting rid of that tax and that is to the great benefit of regional Australia.

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