Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Swan for her question and for her ongoing support and enthusiasm for the resources sector and resources workers. On the first of July, Labor will deliver a tax cut for every Australian to deal with the cost of living. We're delivering a tax cut for everyone living in northern Australia and for everyone working in the resources sector. There are a select few that have invested and taken risks and created hundreds and thousands of jobs in the sector, and they have received great reward. But the average income of resources workers is $144,000. They will get a tax cut of over $3,700. There is a wide range of salaries in the resources sector. CEOs get paid in the millions, with salary and company stock options, but that is far from the case for most hardworking blue collar workers in the resources sector.

From coal country in the Hunter to the iron ore mines in the Pilbara, there are trades assistants, haul truck drivers, diesel mechanics, heritage advisers, cleaners and cooks and they all earn between $75,000 and $95,000 a year. Each of them will get a tax cut of between $1,500 and $2,000 a year. All of these resources workers, and many more, will receive bigger tax cuts under Labor's cost-of-living tax cut plans.

Those opposite don't really want to talk about the average resources workers, their rights, their conditions or their well deserved tax cuts. They don't really want to talk about the truck drivers, the mechanics, the cooks and the cleaners that make our mines run and keep the economy humming. I mean, they might like to jump in a private charter and go to a party in the Pilbara or maybe even Bali. Good on them. That's really top stuff, I suppose. But what we care about are the workers in the resources industry that will get a tax cut. Every single one of them will get a tax cut, and it will be bigger than they might have expected before.

Then, when I go to northern Australia, every person living in northern Australia will receive a bigger tax cut. They have received an average income of $70,000 across northern Australia, and everyone earning that average will get an average tax cut of $1,400.

Only Labor supports all the communities across northern Australia. We don't pick and choose who we support. This will be extra money in people's pockets—people who are doing it tough in northern Australia, where it is tough. There are more expensive items, a lack of competition and transport issues which all add up to making the cost of living even more challenging for those in northern Australia compared to the big cities. Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts will help everyone in northern Australia and every single worker in the resources sector.

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