Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Australia is the world's second-biggest goldminer after China, and Treasury's original proposal for a super profits tax included gold. It is estimated that even the revised mining tax could raise an extra $1.8 billion if gold were included, which would be enough to fund impact assessments for coal seam gas on farmland, for example, as proposed by the member for New England. Treasurer, why should goldminers get a free ride and avoid a tax on their super profits?

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

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question. The MRRT is about taxing the most profitable mines, mining the most profitable commodities, so the government decided to tax iron ore, coal, oil and gas. The fact is that gold is mined with a number of other commodities. Gold can be mined with copper; gold can be mined with nickel. The fact is that we would have had extreme complexity if we had decided to tax a number of commodities in a mine and not tax a number of other commodities in the same mine. That was absolutely impossible to do, so we decided entirely for legitimate reasons to tax the most highly profitable mines with the most highly profitable commodities. The alternative would have been to have gone back to a wider range of commodities, but we would not have received the revenue from a wide range of those commodities that would have justified the complexity. That is why the government decided to go for a limited number of highly profitable commodities in a limited number of mines. It made a lot of policy sense; and it makes policy sense today.

I am pleased to see that the member is a supporter of resource rent taxation. We on this side of the House are strong supporters of resource rent taxation. We believe that the Australian people should get a fair return from the resources they own 100 per cent, which can only be mined once. Given that we have high commodity prices and given that we have the highest terms of trade in 140 years, it is only fair that the Australian people should receive a fair return from that. That is why we have put in place resource rent taxation, particularly when the high terms of trade impact on the economy, push the dollar up and leave us with a patchwork economy. This gives us the capacity to spread the benefits of the mining boom to every corner of our country—to struggling small businesses right around the country. From Tasmania to Western Australia to North Queensland, 2.7 million small businesses will get the instant asset write-off of $6,500—very important support for small business. That is why it is important to use the revenue to invest in infrastructure and it is also very important to make sure that we support the superannuation savings of Australian workers—3.5 million Australian workers will get an immediate boost to their superannuation.

When we say that we are doing something about the patchwork economy, it goes to the core of resource rent taxation, because we understand the need to spread the benefits of the mining boom right around our country. That is why we on this side of the House are strongly supporting resource rent taxation. Those on the other side of the House support lower tax for miners and lower superannuation for Australian workers. We on this side of the House support Australian small businesses with lower taxes and support Australian workers, unlike those on that side of the House.