House debates

Tuesday, 1 June 2010

Questions without Notice

Budget

2:49 pm

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is it important to counter misrepresentations regarding the government’s tax reform package?

Photo of Lindsay TannerLindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for her question. It is very important to counter misrepresentations regarding the government’s tax reform package, and there are an awful lot of misrepresentations going around, both from the opposition and from sections of the mining industry. I mentioned a couple yesterday and I have a few more to mention today. The Minerals Council have had ads on radio recently, and they feature a self-funded retiree saying that the government’s tax plan:

… may be good for paying off the Government’s debt, but it’s not good for me.

Well, there is one problem with this assertion, one big problem: the proceeds from the resource super profits tax are being dedicated to cut company tax, to cut taxes on small business, to cut taxes on superannuation, to invest in infrastructure and to ensure that people who have deductions of up to $1,000 do not have to put tax returns in.

If you want some evidence of this, I have a very reliable source to support the government’s assertion, and that is in fact the opposition. When the opposition announced its purported savings package a week or two ago it put out a table headed ‘Coalition savings’. This is a double-sided table, and it has a list of savings that are specified as being linked to the RSPT. Guess what they are:

Early start to company tax rate cut for small business

Lowering the company tax rate

Small business instant asset write-off …

Resource exploration refundable tax offset

State Infrastructure Fund—

et cetera. There is a total of the savings that are involved in not proceeding with these tax reform proposals, and guess what that adds up to. It adds up to almost $12 billion—the amount the resource super profits tax is proposed to raise over that time. So the opposition nail their own misrepresentation in their own savings announcement.

The second example is a statement made by the head of the Minerals Council, Mr Mitch Hooke, last week, with respect to resources that are in the ground, minerals and resources that are owned by the Australian people. He said that they are ‘only dirt’ when they are in the ground. I have to say, it is great to see the noble and ancient art of alchemy making a comeback—because, according to the head of the Minerals Council, the process of digging this ‘dirt’ out of the ground magically transforms it into gold, or nickel or some other precious metal, but with a twist, because traditionally alchemy was about transforming base metals into gold but, according to the head of the Minerals Council, he can transform dirt into gold. That is some misrepresentation.

Finally, we have the ever-present fifth shadow minister for finance in this parliamentary term, the member for Goldstein. On Sky News yesterday he claimed ‘there are people already losing jobs because of the RSPT’. He was then asked to provide examples. He said:

Ah, yes, there is people, um, I can’t cite them here but they’ve been told to me.

What that does indicate is that there is a giant misrepresentation campaign going on here, both by sections of the mining industry and by the opposition.

The government is concerned to ensure that there is a balanced debate about these very important tax reform proposals and there are constructive negotiations with the mining industry about the details of the proposals, because at the bottom of all this is a simple proposition: to ensure that the Australian community gets full value for its resources that are dug up and sold by the mining industry for prices that are way higher than they have traditionally been, and that that value can be transformed into value for Australian businesses that create jobs and generate wealth all around the country across all sectors. That is what this tax reform proposal is about. That is what the government is committed to doing. And that is what the opposition is committed to tearing down.

2:54 pm

Photo of Ian MacfarlaneIan Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Water) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the case of an industrial engraving business in my electorate of Groom, Lazertek Australia, which has secured significant supply contracts with a dozen resource and energy companies. Lazertek have advised me via this email that, since the news broke of the government’s great big new tax on mining, the turnover from these contracts has fallen by 90 per cent. Will the Prime Minister apologise to Lazertek and all the other small businesses which have been hurt by this great big new tax on mining?

Photo of Kevin RuddKevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

Can I say to the member for Groom that one of the reasons it is important to have facts in the debate about the RSPT is so that misinformation does not create unnecessary uncertainty in the Australian economy. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation has just gone through one example after another of how the existing campaign by the MCA fundamentally misleads in so many aspects of this tax debate—the reason, therefore, why the government has brought forward an advertising campaign on this question to settle the facts in the minds of the Australian public.

Those opposite trade constantly in fear, they trade constantly in misrepresentation—not just in relation to an RSPT; they have done it in practically every other area of public policy as well. That is because the Leader of the Opposition has no positive plan of his own, only fear and loathing in relation to anything positive that we plan or propose for the future. One after another, whether it is a proposal in relation to the economy, whether it is a proposal in relation to how we invest in skills or infrastructure, whether it is a proposal for climate change or whether it is a proposal in relation to an RSPT, what the Leader of the Opposition does is say: ‘(1) I have no policy; (2) you should be very frightened of that policy.’ That is his standard stock in trade. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: he needs to get real with the Australian public and level with them about his own actual policies.

Photo of Ian MacfarlaneIan Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Water) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table this email from David Williams of Lazertek Australia so the Prime Minister can ring him and explain to him why he is wrecking his business.

Leave not granted.