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

I thank the honourable member for Ryan for her question—I really do. The Australian economy is going through a significant transition as we move from the mining construction phase into the mining production phase. Mining represents—as I have said many times in this place—around 10 per cent of GDP, 10 per cent of the economy and 55 per cent of our exports. The biggest part of our economy is services—health services, education services, financial services—and they represent around 70 per cent of our economy, 80 per cent of our jobs and just 17 per cent of our exports. What can we do to create more jobs? When Labor was last in government they were creating jobs at around 2,000 a month. We are creating jobs at around 20,000 a month. What can we do that helps in that regard? The starting point is to get rid of Labor's taxes.

We have already got rid of Labor's carbon tax, which was a handbrake on the Australian economy. We got rid of Labor's mining tax, which was a disincentive for mining investment. We got rid of Labor's piggy bank tax, where they were rating every piggy bank that was not used for a certain period of time. We got rid of Labor's bank deposit tax, which was going to apply to everyone who had a savings account. And, significantly, we got rid of Labor's FBT car tax, which they were going to apply to everyone in the charitable industry who was relying on a motor vehicle supplied by their employer. We got rid of those five Labor taxes, which is significant microeconomic reform in its own regard.

We also inherited 96 taxes that were announced but unlegislated by Labor, and we dealt with all of those as well. I can report to the House that after negotiations at the G20—with George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other members of the G20, in Turkey, a fortnight ago—tomorrow I will be introducing into this parliament the multinational anti-avoidance law, which is the first and foremost law of its kind in the world to go after multinationals that are not paying their fair share of tax. We are ensuring, after having Australian Taxation Office personnel lodged in 30 multinational companies, we are now going to those companies—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

See this speech in context