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

I thank the honourable member for the question—I really do—because the mining industry is hugely important to Australia. In the last year's national accounts, mining contributed a full one per cent of around three per cent of growth, about one-third of the growth, which is a significant number. In the June quarter alone, iron ore export volumes reached a record 181.4 million tonnes, which was 28 per cent higher than the same time last year. So in the last three months of the financial year we saw a 28 per cent increase in the export of iron ore. Yesterday I was intrigued to see a tweet from my friend the member for Lilley. He said:

As mining production expands, Australia is now without a profits based tax to collect a decent return for our resources.

He was moaning about the end of the mining tax. In the same quarter that the mining industry increased iron ore export volumes by 28 per cent, the mining tax raised 2½ cents per Australian. That was fantastic! And the Labor Party is still defending the mining tax. I thought: is this real? I asked myself: could this be real? So I went back to the budget of 2012, the one that the member for Lilley was incredibly proud of, where it said:

The core of this Budget is a plan to spread the benefits of the resources boom …

Two and a half cents, Swannie?

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