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

My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer endorse the reported remarks of Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, Ric Battellino, when he said in reference to mining that the best thing that could happen is for one of the big projects to fall over? Given the Treasurer’s very high regard for the Reserve Bank, which project is Mr Battellino referring to—the South Australian Olympic Dam expansion, the LNG project at Gladstone in Queensland or maybe Western Australia’s Yeelirrie uranium mine? Does the Treasurer have a preference for which big mining project should fall over?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I do not endorse that statement at all. Our ambition for economic growth in this country is for all our industries and for a very strong mining and mineral-producing industry. In fact, if you look at the material we published last Sunday week, we talked about how we as a country will deal with the two-speed economy that comes from mining boom mark 2. We talked a lot about the mistakes made by those opposite in mining boom mark 1. They failed to put in place the necessary investments in the capacity-producing stuff. They failed to put in place the essential investment in infrastructure and left this country with a very serious infrastructure deficit which has put upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. That was the legacy that they left to us as we came to power at the end of 2007. This government is determined to put in place an economic framework which will cope with mining boom mark 2. At the moment, we have had the tail end of the global recession on the one hand and a mining boom coming on the other, off the back of very strong growth in this region—not just Chinese growth, not just Indian growth but growth right across the region.

The one thing that sensible people who study these things know is that a greater percentage of global growth is going to come from the Asia-Pacific as we move forward. It is not going to come from Europe, and we have seen evidence of that. The United States is recovering, but what the global economy is waiting for and relying on is greater growth in this region, and that is a great thing for Australia. What it means for Australia is that if we get the domestic settings right we can maximise the prosperity that flows from that and we can spread the opportunities around to ensure that all of our economy grows—not just some parts growing very strongly but all of our economy growing. This is why the Prime Minister talked before about using the revenue from the Resource Super Profits Tax to cut the corporate rate, to do something for small businesses so that we grow together.

So we have an ambition for a very strong mining industry in this country—a fair system of taxation that returns fair value to the Australian people for their resources, not the resources of the mining companies. We have put forward a perfectly reasonable proposition. We are discussing that with the mining industry. We will work our way through those issues. The sorts of statements that are being made by some opposite and some of the industry were made when this matter was raised in the late 1980s. The whole roof of the economy was going to fall in, but it did not. The biggest single project approved in this country’s history was the Gorgon project approved at the end of last year—a $50 billion project approved under a resource profits tax. We on this side of the House will defend the national interest. Our national interest is to make sure that we grow our economy sustainably to make sure that the Australian people get a fair share of their resources and to make sure that we grow together, and that is what we are doing.