Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will oppose this legislation in the House and we will oppose it in the other place. We will oppose it on several grounds. We will oppose it because we do not believe the minerals resource rent tax should be repealed and we will oppose it because we believe the other measures included in this bill certainly should not be repealed.

This bill is called the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill. It could just as easily be called the 'schools kids bonus repeal bill'. It could be called the 'low-income superannuation contribution repeal bill'. It could be called the 'small business tax increase bill'. It could be the 'abolition of accelerated depreciation for cars bill'. It could be called any number of things. Of course, the government has chosen to call it the minerals resource rent tax repeal bill. I will deal with each of these items in term.

The minerals resource rent tax is, of course, the centrepiece of the bill. On this side of the House we believe that a profits based tax on profits from the minerals sector—minerals which belong to the Australian people—is a good reform. That is not to say that it does not have its challenges in implementation, it does not have its challenges in design. But to say, as those opposite do, that it should be abolished is something we do not agree with at all. Those opposite say, they said, it was a dagger at the heart of the prosperity of Australia. They said that it would raise so much money that it would cripple the minerals sector in Australia. Now they say it should be abolished because it hasn't raised enough. They cannot have it both ways.

Of course, reform is always difficult. Those opposite said that it would make projects unviable. I challenge any government speaker tonight in this debate—or in the vast hour or so that they have deigned to allow for debate!—to outline which projects have not proceeded because the minerals resource rent tax is in place. Name a mining project, name a venture which has not proceeded. I would be very interested to hear from honourable members opposite.

I saw the honourable member for Moncrieff a few weeks ago on telly—on The Nation on Sky—and he said, of course, that the minerals resource rent tax 'has stopped projects proceeding'. I saw David Speers, the host, say, 'Could you name one,' and there was this long, awkward pause we occasionally see on television and then the member for Moncrieff indicated that he did not have one at hand—but he was sure that there was one somewhere.

Reform is never easy. Difficult reforms are always worth fighting for. We have to draw on history. The minerals resource rent tax is not the first time a government has attempted to implement a profits based tax on resources. We saw a previous government, the Hawke Labor government, introduce the petroleum resource rent tax for exploration which occurs off our coast for exploitation of what is also Australia's natural resources by offshore petroleum enterprises. I am going to spend a little bit of time on this because it is instructive.

In this House the Hawke Labor government had to fight very hard to see the petroleum resource rent tax introduced. The Hawke Labor government said that this resource, which belongs to all Australians, should provide a revenue stream for all Australians. I went back and had a look at that debate, because it is very, very instructive. Somebody who then held the office that I now hold, shadow Treasurer, said this:

Nothing could better illustrate the counterproductive nature of the Hawke government's energy policies. The Hawke government's RRT will effectively destroy the incentive for offshore exploration.

That was the then the shadow Treasurer, John Howard, who argued that this resource rent tax would stop ventures proceeding and should not be proceeded with. Then we had the then member for Mayo—that economic genius Alexander Downer!—who said:

The legislation is yet another example of this government introducing new taxes on the few productive industries we have left in Australia, thereby inhibiting their development.

'… the few productive industries we have left in Australia …'. Now there is an optimistic view for you from the future Foreign Minister! If you look through the Hansard of that debate—it was a long and bitter debate—I could have not told you, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, it was from the PRRT debate and you would have thought it was from the MRRT debate. They are the sorts of things that those opposite said at the time about the PRRT that they have said since about the MRRT. Mr Everingham, who I have a vague recollection of and who sat opposite, said this:

This government's determination to find every means to extract dollars from the industry to prop up its disastrous record of economic management threatens the very livelihood of the oil exploration industry.

You see, members opposite at the time said that the PRRT would be such a disincentive for growth that it would destroy the petroleum industry in Australia and they fought it, resisted it, with all the energy a could muster. There was one little problem for those members opposite. It passed both houses at a time. It went on, of course, not to provide a disincentive for investment and has raised for the Australian people in the time since then, in 2013 dollars, $39 billion. Of course we had the Howard government come and go and I do not recall an attempt to repeal the petroleum resource rent tax. We now see the Abbott government in office and I have not seen a bill come before the House to abolish the petroleum resource rent tax—because, of course, history tells us that the petroleum resource rent tax did not have the adverse consequences that Tories at the time said it would. It did not have the chilling effect on investment that they said it would. But it did do this: it has raised for the Australian people $39 billion in 2013 dollars since it was introduced. It was a good reform—a reform that the Hawke government had to fight for, a reform of the Hawke government had to argue for, a reform that was done in good time so that subsequent conservative government could not repeal it. Unfortunately, we see this conservative government repealing the MRRT.

But they are also not just repealing the MRRT in this piece of legislation. They are repealing a whole range of other measures, which I will deal with sequentially. Firstly, we see this government attempting to repeal in this legislation the low income superannuation contribution. More than any other measure, the repeal of the low income superannuation contribution tells us about the priorities of this government. It tells us even more than their priorities. It tells us about their values. It tells us about the values of this government.

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, most Australians get a tax concession for saving for the future—saving through superannuation—as they should. Most Australians receive it, but not all. High-income earners receive a tax concession for saving for the future, and they should, but in the previous government we thought that it was fundamentally unfair that low- and middle-income earners receive zero tax concession for saving for the future. One in three Australian workers receives not one bit of assistance to save for their future through the superannuation system, and we thought that that was unfair—and we think it is unfair now.

But we did not just think it was unfair; we did something about it. So the low income superannuation contribution effectively means that people earning under $37,000 now get a tax concession for saving through superannuation. They actually get some benefit out of the tax system for putting money aside for the future. I would again invite honourable members opposite who are going to speak in this debate to explain to the House and to the Australian people why they think it is fair that somebody who might be a cleaner or a manufacturing worker or a shop assistant gets no assistance at all to save for their retirement through the superannuation system and the tax system.

It is even worse than that because this government is taking the low income superannuation contribution away retrospectively. Australians who saved money through the superannuation system, put money aside, and got a tax concession are having it taken away by this government. Can you imagine the furore if this government attempted such a measure for high-income earners? If any government attempted a retrospective tax on the superannuation of high-income earners there would be a justified outrage but because low-income earners and middle-income earners have less of a voice in the national debate this government thinks they can get away with it. Well, we are their voice and we will oppose this measure to repeal the low income superannuation contribution.

Low- and middle-income earners have a right to be outraged that the tax concession on their superannuation savings is being ripped away by this government. I said that this tells us about the values of the government, and it does, because not in this step, but in other measures, this government is reversing other tax changes of the previous government. They are providing a tax break for people who have more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts. Good luck to people who have more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts. Good luck! There are people in this House with more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts—good luck to them. They should receive a tax break but not the extraordinarily generous tax breaks that this government intends to give them at the same time as taking away tax breaks from people throughout Australia who are working away quietly in their shops and factories trying to save a bit for the future.

I oppose class warfare in all its forms and this is class warfare from this government, giving a tax break to people with more than $2 million in their superannuation accounts and taking it away from Australians who earn less than $37,000. I do not suggest that they raise the same amount of money because they do not. I do not suggest that if you did not do one you would not have to do the other because that does not equate. But it equates when it comes to values and priorities. It equates when it comes to what is important in this House, and it is important in this House that low- and middle-income earners receive some support for saving for the future.

This tax grab by this government on low- and middle-income earners has a particularly adverse effect on females in the workforce. It is not just because females, even still in 2013, receive a lower average pay than males. It is because females in the workforce have a more interrupted working life and more things that take them out of the workforce, most particularly having children. Even with paid parental leave, many mothers stay out of the workforce for longer than 12 months and therefore they have an extremely interrupted working life. That means they do not have a period in the workforce to build for their retirement. So the low income superannuation contribution is a chance to give them a bit of a leg-up, as they say, for their retirement so that when they hit retirement age they have something to fall back on. What is unfair about that?

I invite, again, honourable members opposite to explain to us why they think that somebody with under $37,000 of income deserves zero support through the tax system to save for their retirement. Zero support—the government are not just reducing the support through the tax system, they are not just taking a bit away, they are abolishing the only tax concession that goes to low- and middle-income workers earning under $37,000. It is not in the national interest when you combine the abolition of the low income superannuation contribution with another measure in this bill, which is to delay the increase in superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent. That will reduce our national savings by $53 billion by 2021-22.

We all know that this Prime Minister does not really understand superannuation and does not really support it. He stood in this House, somewhere over here in the opposition, after the increase in superannuation was introduced—he did it in the adjournment debate, as I recall—and called Australia's superannuation system the biggest con job in Australian history. He does not support superannuation. The Prime Minister does not understand that superannuation is the way to remove people from welfare, through their retirement, and give them a chance to save for their future. The Prime Minister fundamentally does not understand that. He said here in this House that he does not really support moving from nine to 12. I hope that this delay does not become a cancellation. When the government says: 'It's all too much harder than we thought. We're going to have to cancel this increase from nine per cent to 12 per cent.' They have done it before. They promised the Australian people in 1996 that they would move the superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent and they reneged on that promise.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's wrong.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They reneged on that promise in 1996. It pays to listen to the debate before interjecting. In 1996, they promised the Australian people they would not interfere with the increase to 12 per cent and they reneged on that promise.

Another measure in this bill will remove the instant asset write-off for small business. It sounds like some sort of arcane tax measure and maybe it is. Actually, it is a small business tax cut, which the previous government introduced. It was a measure to reduce the red tape compliance burden on small business. When Labor came to office in 2007, small businesses could write-off any investment under $1,000 without all the red tape burden which normally goes with that. The previous government increased that threshold to $6,500 so that there was much more that small business could just write-off without the red tape burden. At the last election, we had a commitment to increase it further to 10 per cent.

This bill takes it back to 2007 levels, back to $1,000. We hear a lot from this government about small business. They say that they are the party of small business. We hear a lot about red tape. They are strong on rhetoric, short on action—not only that, counterproductive action. In one of the first pieces of legislation they are bringing before the House, this government want to increase taxes on small business and increase the red tape burden—increasing taxes on small business by a billion dollars and increasing the red tape burden on any small business that chooses to make an investment between $1,000 and $6,500. Now there is not only the cash flow impact but the red tape impact.

I wonder if the member for Kooyong is going to speak in this debate, the member who has been tasked by the Prime Minister to cut red tape. Is he going to support this measure which will increase the red tape burden on Australia's small businesses? We will oppose this measure because we do not actually believe just in the rhetoric about small business; we believe in action to support it. We are proud of our pro small business reforms. We saw this red tape burden and we lifted it from small business, and this government are going to reimpose it. It is not just us who say this; the Australian Industry Group said of the increase in the threshold of the small business asset write-off that it 'will add complexity and compliance costs for eligible small businesses.' This change in the law will increase red tape and affect cash flow at a time when the government needs to be looking to boost non-mining investment as investment in the mining sector winds down. It will be a stymie to investment from the small business sector.

This is a very significant measure that this government are seeking to abolish. It will increase taxes in up to 2.7 million small businesses. It is not just that. This bill also abolishes the loss carry back. Again, it might sound like an arcane tax measure. Loss carry back is a measure not just for small businesses; it encourages innovation and a bit of risk-taking. It says that if you make a loss in one particular year, you can take that into account in future years. I would have thought that it was something that this government would embrace with all their rhetoric about entrepreneurialism, innovation, risk-taking and private enterprise. I would have thought they would embrace this measure, and would have congratulated the previous government for introducing it. But, no, we see them abolishing it in the first sitting fortnight. This will be a hit to businesses of almost $1 billion over the next four years.

Then we get to the accelerated depreciation of motor vehicles for small business. Again, we have heard a lot from this government about the importance of the car industry and the importance of tax treatment for the car industry. This would allow a small business an immediate $5,000 deduction for a vehicle costing $6,500 or more. So do not lecture us about the car industry, when this accelerated depreciation is being taken away by this government, an impost on small business and an impost on the car industry. Let us see this impost play through the car industry. We will be having a bit to say about that and holding the government to account for its impacts. We will not be lectured by this government about fringe benefits tax or any other measure when this new government are actually abolishing the accelerated depreciation of motor vehicles for small business.

The final matter I am going to speak about is one that I know is very close to the heart of the member for Jagajaga, who has joined us in the chamber—that is, the schoolkids bonus. We hear a lot about cost of living, as we should. We heard about cost of living before the election and we hear a lot about cost of living after the election. We get lectured in this chamber about what we should do about cost of living. Well, let us have a talk about cost of living and about government measures to support families dealing with the cost of living.

Something that helps families deal with the cost of living is $410 a year for primary school students and $820 a year for high school students. If a family has two children, that amounts to $15,000 over the course of their schooling life. I think that might help them with the cost of living just a little. I think that might actually help families deal with the cost of sending their children to school. I think that taking 4½ billion dollars from Australian families might be something we might want to talk about in the cost-of-living debate. We might not want to be lectured by this mob about the cost of living when they are putting legislation into this House to take away $15,000 out of the pockets of Australian families.

We hear from the government, 'The minerals resource rent tax has not made as much as we thought or you thought, or was predicted; therefore, we have to abolish this measure.' There is one little problem with the government's equation. The minerals resource rent tax was never designed to pay for the schoolkids bonus. If you look at the announcements at the time, the minerals resource rent tax was never introduced to pay for the schoolkids bonus. They were completely separate policies. If this government want to abolish the schoolkids bonus, it should have the guts to put it in separate legislation, bring it into the House, bring it into the other place and see how you go. Try your luck, because it was not paid for by the minerals resource rent tax. It never was. So how dare this government incorporate it in the same legislation? Do not talk to us about cost of living when you are taking money away from Australia's families with school children and putting it in the same legislation as the mineral resource rent tax. It was never paid for by the minerals resource rent tax.

The schools kids bonus was designed to replace the education tax rebate introduced by this government. That is where it came from. I looked through the legislation and I thought, 'Well, maybe if they are abolishing the school kids bonus then maybe they are at least reintroducing the education tax rebate.' No, they are not. While I am at it, the accelerated depreciation of motor vehicles, which I talked about before, was replacing the entrepreneurs tax offset, not reintroduced by this legislation either. It is the same problem.

This government has some consistency issues to deal with. I really look forward to hearing from honourable members opposite because they have some explaining to do. They have got to explain to Australian families how taking money away from the school kids bonus is going to help the cost of living. They have got to explain to Australia's low- and middle-income earners why every single one of them over there thinks it is fair that they should get zero tax concession for saving for their retirement. And they need to explain why they think somebody with $2 million in their superannuation account deserves quite a good tax concession, thank you very much, but somebody on $37,000 or less deserves not a bit less but zero tax concession to save for their retirement.

We think it is unfair and we will vote accordingly because this is a debate about values, not just priorities but values. Our values tell us that the school kids bonus is important. Our values tell us that the low-income superannuation contribution is important. Our values tell us that the small business tax concessions are important because we do not just talk about small business; we do not have empty rhetoric about how they are the backbone of the nation; we actually do things that help small business; and this government is taking them away.

My challenge to the government is this: tell us why it is fair. Tell us why it is better for small business that they do not have the increased thresholds for the instant asset write-off. Tell Australia's families why it is fair that they lose the school kids bonus. Tell Australia's hard-working low- and middle-income earners why they should receive zero tax concessions for their superannuation. When they tell the Australian people that, I think the Australian people will have a fair bit to say about it. We will certainly be having plenty to say about it in this debate in the weeks, months and years to follow.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax and Other Measures Bill 2013. One of my favourite movies I have enjoyed over the years is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The plot in that movie features the dysfunctional Clark W Griswold. Clark Griswold, in that famous movie, thinks that he is going to get this great big bonus for Christmas. So he goes out and promises his family all the wonderful things he is going to get with the bonus. We see in the movie the complete disarray and the complete dysfunction that the household falls into because they have been promised things, but the income never arrived. This is exactly the same situation we have here with this government, which made all these wonderful promises to the electorate about all these wonderful things they were going to do based on a tax that did not raise the revenue to pay for it.

The former government locked in expenditure and made promises to the electorate about wonderful things they were going to do and about the great benefits they were going to throw upon the electorate because of this tax. They locked in $16.17 billion of expenditure on an underlying cash basis over the forward estimates. Or if you look at all the fiscal basis, $18.4 billion worth of expenditure and promises has been locked in yet so far this tax has only raised $400 million—just a fraction. The government must understand. They ran the four biggest budget deficits in our nation's history. No government can carry on, as they did, running up debt, making promises and having no way to pay for it.

We heard the member for McMahon in his contribution try to pretend that the expenditures and the promises were not linked to the mining tax. I would like to draw your attention to comments by Senator Wong in an interview on ABC Drive in June 2012 where the former government linked the payment of the school kids bonus to the proceeds of the mining tax. Senator Wong said:

I think it's about making sure we use the benefits of the boom wisely.

The government's approach with the mining tax was about making sure the benefits flowed through to families, particularly low- and middle-income families through the school kids bonus, where people got assistance for kids' education. All governments would like to give more money to families but can only do it with the revenue raised in taxes. That is why, unfortunately, this repeal is necessary. The mining tax does not raise the revenue that these promises are based upon.

The member for McMahon, in his speech, would have anyone out there listening believe that our mining companies do not pay any tax and somehow or other these minerals in the ground, that rightly belong to all Australians, are somehow being taken away by these mining companies and they are not paying any tax. I would like to just go through the contribution that the mining industry makes to this country and the amount of tax that it is currently paying.

The place to start is employment—the number of jobs the mining industry contributes. Direct employment in the minerals industry at August this year was 249,000 people. That is up 40 per cent from just three years ago. Of those 249,000 workers in the industry, 95 per cent are full-time employees. And look at the wages that are paid. The average full-time salary in the mining industry is $2,477 a week, which is $128,000 a year. That is the contribution the mining industry makes. If you add those figures up, in one year that is $30 billion in wages that the mining industry pays to Australians. That is approximately $10 billion in personal income tax that the mining companies generate through the wages that they pay.

Then we go to community infrastructure contributed by the mining industry. In the year 2011-12 alone, the mining industry spent $35 billion on community infrastructure, Indigenous contractors and local suppliers. This is what is at risk from his government's tax. Then there is research and development. We know that the mining industry is the largest contributor to research and development in Australia. In 2011-12 there was $4.1 billion at risk because of the opposition's refusal to allow the repeal of this tax. It is not only the amount of tax that is paid that is important; how that tax was increased from the years of the Howard government to the years of the previous Labor government is also important. In the last year of the Howard government, $4 billion in royalties was paid. That is $4 billion into state coffers. In the last year of the Labor government it had doubled to $8 billion. That side over there, who pretend that they were getting nothing from the mining tax, were getting $8 billion in royalties. And that was only a small spit in the bucket compared with what they were getting in company profits. Again, in the last year of the Howard government, mining company profits—the tax paid on profits—were $6 billion. In the last year of the Labor government, that had doubled to $12 billion.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

We hear the member for Jagajaga interjecting. This is what you do not understand: you are putting at risk that revenue that is flowing into the Treasury by trying to burden these companies with yet more taxes. That is the entire problem. That is the danger and the concern that we have, and that is the concern the mining industry have. You are not satisfied with those billions of dollars in tax, and you are putting it all at risk. What you do not understand is that we compete throughout the world to attract investment in mining. We are not the only country in the world that has coal. In fact, our coal resources are a mere seven per cent of the world's total. Ninety-three per cent of the world's known coal reserves are outside of Australia. Countries such as China, the USA, Pakistan, Russia and India all have greater coal reserves than Australia does. There are also large reserves of coal in South Africa, the UK, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Indonesia. We as a nation need to compete with those countries for that limited mining investment.

It is the same with iron ore. We do not have a monopoly on iron ore. Many other countries have large deposits of iron ore. We are competing against China, Brazil, India, Russia, Ukraine, the USA and Canada for mining investment. If we burden mining in Australia with additional taxes above the ample taxes they are already paying, we risk that very investment. We risk the jobs and we risk not more tax going into government coffers but less tax.

The other concern about this completely misguided tax is the red-tape burden that it places on the Australian mining industry. There are around 145 companies that need to go through all the compliance regulations, all the compliance burdens of this mining tax, and do you know how much tax they pay? They pay zero tax. Millions of dollars are being spent on accountants, bureaucrats and people pushing pens without creating one solitary set of wealth for this nation—in order to comply with the red-tape burden of this misguided tax.

The coalition government would like to give as much as we can to our people. But we cannot continue to run the debt up recklessly as the previous Labor government have done. Already the wasteful and reckless expenditure of the previous Labor government has resulted in an interest bill of $10 billion a year that we must now pay. That is an additional $10 billion that we must raise from the taxpayer and that cannot be used for our roads, our schools, our hospitals, our kids with disabilities, our public transport and all the other things we need to do

That $10 billion just pays the interest bill. Worst of all, about 75 per cent of that money we actually have to shift overseas. Because of the debt this government has run up we have to do that year after year after year forever until we start paying back the close to $300 billion that these people have had to borrow to fund their reckless, wasteful expenditure. How can members of the government look at the young people of this country, our future generations, and explain to them the debt burden that they are leaving them to pay? If we put that debt on a weekly basis, it is $200 million every single week that this government now has to raise from the taxpayer and not use on all those services that we need to do. Instead, we have to pay the interest.

We have to stop this. We have to turn the ship around, and that is why not only must we repeal this badly conceived, flawed mining tax, which is actually creating a burden and putting at risk the revenue that we are currently getting from the mining sector, the jobs we are currently getting through the mining sector, the community infrastructure that the mining sector is currently providing, not only putting all that at risk by this poorly conceived tax. That is why this tax has to be repealed, and unfortunately that is why all the spending that goes with it also has to be repealed. We need to start to pay down government debt. We need to start to turn the ship around. Otherwise we are going to burden our children and our future generations of Australians with greater and greater debt burdens than the legacy of this Labor government has already left. I commend the bill to the House.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to contribute to the debate on what is called the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013. That phrase 'and other measures' conceals many savage cuts that will have a devastating impact on Australian families. This legislation is about much more than the repeal of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax. It contains cuts that Australian families are going to feel as a result of this new government's actions. Labor will oppose these cuts. Let us wait and see how each of the members here tonight goes out and says to the families in their electorates, 'I'm going to take this money out of your pockets. I'm going to make sure that you don't have the money that you need to make it a bit easier for you to pay for the things that your children need at school.'

This legislation in fact scraps two Labor payments that made life easier for Australians: the Schoolkids Bonus and the income support bonus. It also contains a hit to superannuation for low-income earners with the abolition of the low-income superannuation contribution. If this legislation is passed, and I hope it will not be, Australian families will begin to feel the real impact of this government's cuts: 1.3 million families will be worse off, in Bass, in Hughes, in Cook—all of the families that live in your electorates that rely on the Schoolkids Bonus are going to lose money because of this government's legislation. We look forward to seeing whether or not members opposite have got the courage to go up to families in their electorates and tell them how much money they are going to take out of parents' pockets—2.2 million school-aged children are going to be worse off. What sort of government does that: 2.2 million schoolchildren are going to be worse off. Over the school lives of children in an average family, families will be $15,000 worse off. That is what this legislation does to families—$15,000 will come out of the pockets of ordinary families, low and middle income families, because this government is putting this legislation into the parliament.

As Labor people we are very proud that we provided this additional support to Australian families to help with the costs of their children's education. We actually care about these families. We do not just talk about it, we do not get up in the parliament and gives speeches about the needs of low and middle income families, we actually deliver for them. What we are seeing from this government, though—the new member for Bass is having a bit of a smile about it. I will tell him what it means to the families in his electorate of Bass. I know very well that there are many low and middle income families in Launceston. What he is about to vote for is going to take $409 a year each year away from each family in his electorate with a primary school-aged child. If you have got two primary school-aged children it is double that. For secondary school-aged children the member for Bass is going to take $820 a year, each year—not just once but each year a child is in secondary school. For most of them it is six years and $820 a year from ordinary families in his electorate. So he needs to go out and tell all of the families in Bass that he is taking all of that money out of their pockets, and that it is a decision that he personally is making. And the same applies to all of the members in the Liberal and National parties who are going to vote to cut this money out of the budgets of families.

This is money for families who are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to make sure that they have the money to pay for their children's education—money that they depend on, whether it is for school uniforms, school shoes, textbooks, camps, excursions, sports fees, sports equipment and so the list goes on. I am sure that many members know how expensive school uniforms are. Average school uniforms are around $430, and we know particularly how quickly children in those middle years grow. Average annual costs for books, stationery and other equipment is around $250 for primary school children and $400 for high school students, and then of course there are the extra fees that parents might have for music or sport: families need this money.

What we are giving them, of course, is just a contribution to the costs that families pay for their children's education. But today in this legislation—not that they have the courage to own up to it in even the name of the bill that is before the parliament; they do not even have the courage to do that—this bill takes this money from Australian families. This Prime Minister is going to make life harder for Australian families as a result of this legislation.

I know one family in Brisbane: mum and dad, four kids aged four to 11. Three of the children are in primary school, the mother is at home and the father earns around $50,000 a year. With three of their children in primary school they are due to receive an extra $1,227 to help them make sure that their kids have every opportunity at school. What will happen to that family if this legislation gets through? If this Prime Minister and all the people who sit over there have their way? That family and 1.3 million families just like them will lose that money. So for this family, it is more than $1,200 each year—each year that family will lose that.

That is exactly what this legislation is going to do. And, of course, to add insult to injury the government is not telling the truth to the Australian people about why they are taking this money away. The Treasurer has long claimed that the schoolkids bonus is attached to revenue received from the mining tax. But as I was the minister responsible for this payment, I can assure the House that it was not. When Labor introduced the schoolkids bonus it was done by replacing the education tax refund. We introduced the education tax refund in 2008-09 and then we recognised that we needed to make some improvements. Many people were not getting the benefit of the refund so we redesigned the payment into a direct payment for families.

At the time, of course, my colleagues will remember that the Liberal-National parties opposed this measure vehemently. Extraordinary! They say they are there to support families, but they came in here and fought this measure tooth and nail to try to prevent families getting this benefit. We did get the measure through the parliament, and families have been receiving the benefit because the Labor government understood how important it was to help.

And now, in what I can only describe as a cynical effort to con Australian families, we have the Treasurer including the schoolkids bonus in this legislation, trying to fool Australian families that somehow it has nothing to do with the legislation that is before us. Well, we will oppose it and we will oppose it because we actually think we are here and elected to support low-and middle-income families, and especially those who want to help their children get the best education. That is why we introduced the schoolkids bonus—no other reason. We wanted to help families make sure that their children get a good education. And now the coalition government is going to take that support away.

Of course, it is not only this government that has behaved in this way. We have seen the Liberal government in Victoria do the same. They ripped away the School Start Bonus, which was actually just for very low-income families, and now we see them doing it here by abolishing the schoolkids bonus.

This legislation also seeks to abolish another one of Labor's payments, this time to the very vulnerable. The income support bonus is a tax-free, indexed, non-means tested payment paid twice a year to some of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens: people on Austudy, Newstart, ABSTUDY, youth allowance and a range of other social security payments. The purpose of the previous Labor government putting the income support bonus in place was to make sure there was additional support for these very vulnerable citizens to help them manage what are sometimes very difficult and unanticipated costs, whether those are medical bills or urgent car repairs. These are very hard to plan for when you do not have very much money. It was much needed support, especially for people who are unemployed.

This extra cash has been paid now to more than 1 million—1 million—low-income Australians. That is how many people have had that extra support—very vulnerable Australians. Once again, this government wants to take it away—not take it away from wealthy people; take it away from the poorest people in our country. What sort of values does a government have that wants to take a small amount of money away from the most vulnerable people in the country? That is what it is doing. Meanwhile, we see this government—not in this legislation but in other legislation—increasing opportunities for those with high-income super. And we know what the government wants to do for the very, very highest income earners with its Paid Parental Leave Scheme, but let's leave that for another day.

This legislation also plans to scrap the Labor government's low-income superannuation contribution—another change to some of the poorest people in the country. This was a government contribution of up to $500 a year—not a huge amount of money—to help those earning $37,000 or less, so very low income people, to save for their retirement. At the same time that this government seeks to rip this money out of the retirement savings of low-income earners, they have abandoned a proposal to tax high-income earners' super contributions. This really sums up the values of those opposite: take from the lowest income earners in this country and reward the high-income earners. This is fast becoming a characteristic of this government.

We know that this legislation contains cuts that will hit 1.3 million families, 2.2 million children and a million very vulnerable citizens through the income support bonus. This will just be the first hit to families by this government—I am sure it will not be the last. Meanwhile, Labor will of course continue to stand up for the interests of hardworking families, for the interests of those who need our support the most. That is what governments are supposed to be there for: to help those who need assistance, not to come around the back door and sneakily put in legislation that will see very, very significant cuts to millions and millions of Australians. We will oppose this legislation.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After those contributions from the member for McMahon and the member for Jaga Jaga, it is clear that the early days of the 44th Parliament are bearing witness to the most extraordinary efforts by those opposite to cling to the 43rd Parliament. As Australians have come to realise, the Labor Party created a number of problems during the last six years. The member for Jaga Jaga and her colleagues created a boat problem, a taxes problem and a debt problem. As soon as the election was over, the clamour from those opposite for us to do something about the debt, taxes and boat problems became deafening. Yet every day in this parliament they work to deny us the clear mandate we have from the Australian people to fix their debt problem, their taxes problem and their boat problem. In the process, they only accentuate the trust deficit that they have with the Australian people.

But whether it is their opposition to the carbon tax repeal bill, or their efforts to deny the success that the member for Cook and Lieutenant-General Campbell have achieved with Operation Sovereign Borders, or their efforts to stop our repeal of the MRRT, Australians are awake to the motivation of those opposite. It is not based on any noble assessment of national interest or a deeply held ideological belief. It is about those sharp, jagged factional edges which continue to grate against each other after six years of chaos, division and broken promises.

What I encourage those opposite to do is just let go of the 43rd Parliament. Let go of the carbon tax and the mining tax, which the Australian people have so comprehensively rejected at the last election. Let us implement the repeal of the MRRT legislation which, after all, was front and centre at our 2013 election campaign. At a time when the industry was and remains confronted with challenges to its ability to invest and grow, the former government imposed additional pressure through the MRRT. We will work to wind back the bad policies of the former government and alleviate that pressure. And if you think that Labor's approach to the MRRT sounds familiar, you are right. It repeats the mistakes of the carbon tax.

As members present will recall, Labor's carbon tax took no account of what had happened at the Copenhagen summit. It became a millstone around the neck of Australia's international competitiveness. And despite the pain that it caused, the carbon tax did not actually have the effect of reducing emissions at all. It did not achieve its intended effect, yet it undermined jobs and endeavour. Just like the carbon tax, the MRRT imposed a big lead weight on the mining industry without raising the forecast revenue. As the Treasurer said when introducing this legislation to the House, we are in the very unusual position as legislators of repealing a tax which will actually save the Commonwealth money. That is the simple truth of the matter, and that is why I strongly urge all of those who are not on the government benches to support this bill.

As someone whose former career was in the military, I recall the old joke: if it moves, salute it; if it doesn't, paint it. If I might extend that adage in a political sense, the Labor Party's approach is, and historically has been: if it contributes to the national economy, tax it mercilessly. But like so many policies that were recklessly inflicted on the Australian people and businesses in the last six years, the MRRT was simply not thought through. It was not only ill-conceived but compounded the economic damage when the former government linked a number of spending measures to this blunt economic instrument. The schoolkids bonus, which we have heard about this evening, was dependent on revenue from the mining tax. We see that link, as the member or Hughes pointed out earlier, in comments from Senator Wong, the then minister for finance, in June 2012 which directly linked the schoolkids bonus to the proceeds of the mining tax.

In essence, Labor raised expectations in our community that the federal government would fund certain programs from mining tax revenue. The problem was that the MRRT did not deliver anywhere near the forecast revenue, and Labor became even more reliant, if that is possible, on borrowings to pay for these commitments. Repeal of the MRRT package will deliver more than $13 billion of savings to the budget bottom line on an underlying cash basis over the forward estimates—I repeat, $13 billion in savings. In doing so, it goes some way to repairing the economic damage caused to our nation's finances during the last six years.

In the case of the MRRT, as we have heard, it is forecast to raise only around 10 per cent of the original forecast revenue. Since its introduction, the MRRT has raised only around $400 million in net terms, yet the former government has locked in $16.7 billion of expenditure on an underlying cash basis over the current forward estimates. That is over 40 times the current revenue accrued. Just imagine running a business on that basis. Imagine committing 40 times your forecast income—not actual income, but forecast income—based on questionable assumptions with a political twist. The Labor government was like a gambler at the casino, predicting a huge windfall, spending that windfall 40 times over and then expressing surprise when the consequences of their bad judgement was realised. And unforgivably, they were gambling with Commonwealth revenue and expenditure. By repealing ill-considered policies like the carbon and mining taxes, we are acting to ease pressure on the budget. As the Minerals Council of Australia has rightly pointed out, even if the original basis of the MRRT could be argued, the economic situation applying in 2010 is very different in the resources sector from that which applies in the international commodity world of 2013, and the member for Fraser, surely, would understand that.

It is difficult to understand why the Labor Party, having created this mess, is now standing in the way of us fixing it. Repeal of the MRRT will have a significant effect on Australia's reputation as, in the words of the Prime Minister, we will be 'open for business', and specifically open for investment. Like the repeal of the carbon tax currently being debated, the MRRT was an isolationist tax. It was a government taking measures that disadvantaged the national interest in isolation to the policy settings of our major competitors. That is what made the Rudd and Gillard government decisions in this area so breathtakingly bad. It is legitimate for us to have different views about the environment and management of resources, but it is surely bereft of any economic sense whatsoever to take policy decisions that had the direct effect of disadvantaging our terms of trade.

Much of the media commentary on the MRRT has concentrated Western Australia and Queensland, and so it should because of the importance of the resources sector in those states. But this House must remember that every state of the Federation is a mining state. In my home state of Tasmania, resetting our economic course to a brighter future includes reinvigorating valuable industries like forestry and mining. Increases to the tax and compliance costs for industries like mining have the potential to damage our state doubly. They can impede new investment and impact on the growth of local jobs—highly undesirable outcomes for a state that has the highest unemployment rate in Australia. The MRRT did not raise revenue directly from Tasmanian mines but the signal it sent to those keen to invest in and expand our mining sector was clear. 'We will tax you,' Labor said, and there was no ambiguity in that message for those seeking to invest.

And in doing this, they were enthusiastically supported by the Green Party. The Greens of course are masters at traducing reputations of companies especially in the resources sector. They have no compunction whatsoever in using whatever tools they can—underhand or out in the open, it does not matter to them. It was nothing short of alarming that a major political party founded on support for working people especially miners was happy to support a law which attacked confidence in the mining sector so squarely. I hope that Labor parliamentarians reflect on this the next time they evoke images of the Eureka flag.

In my own state we have seen the Green Party's consistent efforts to lock up the so-called Tarkine in Tasmania, a name quickly leapt on by Dr Bob Brown in the early 1990s to elevate it to some mystical and romanticised status. In reality this is of course the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area bounded by the Arthur River in the north and the Pieman River in the south. Yet Dr Brown's invention has mystical growing boundaries matched only by growing Green Party demands to lock up even more of our state as a national park.

The Arthur-Pieman area is indeed a beautiful area with important reserves that already deliver a sensible balance between recreational, economic and conservation imperatives. But despite recent mine proposals and existing mines only covering one per cent of Dr Brown's mystical creation, the Greens continue to use every legal device to impede mining approvals. This is an area dotted with historical mine sites and railway infrastructure, yet the Green Party quite mendaciously present it as pristine, untouched wilderness. But of course the Greens have never let the facts get in the way of a good story. That is why they have duped so many good people. There is little doubt the Greens celebrate the MRRT, which only serves to add pressure on the mining industry. In this sense Labor's mining tax supports Green Party efforts around the country to impede sensible development.

When we are considering legislation directly related to our mining industry, it is worth reminding the House of the contribution the industry makes. Apart from the very important royalty payments, the growth of many areas of regional Australia has been directly supported by mining. The Minerals Council stated yesterday that the mining industry made a contribution of $34.7 billion to community infrastructure, Indigenous contractors, and local suppliers in just one financial year, 2011-12. This was the conclusion of the corporate social responsibility consultants, Banarra. As all of us who have visited mining towns know, this includes community facilities such as health centres, education and training, sporting clubs, transport services and community amenities.

So when Australians heard the glib Hawker-Brittan line that Australians should get 'something back' from mining, they were rightly bemused. They knew—and even Labor spin doctors knew—Australians do get something back from mining. They get royalties, company tax, licencing fees, and the often underestimated community contribution. But of course most of all they get long-term employment for thousands of Australians directly and many thousands more indirectly.

When the history of Australia is written, the carbon tax and the mining tax will be remembered as signature policy failures of the Labor Party in government and I do think that the more thoughtful of those opposite also understand that. Many of those opposite who understand it have now left the parliament. As the former member for Batman so eloquently said in this House on 29 May 2013:

Creating opportunities by working with business is not the same thing as pointless class rhetoric. In essence, we need to grow the pie to share it.

Martin Ferguson got it and I know that there are others on that side of the House who get it as well. More is the pity that they do not represent an influential majority in the Labor caucus.

The member for Jagajaga and the member for McMahon during their contributions were keen to lecture the House on values. Trust is considered by some as a foundation value. In the three weeks remaining of parliament this year the opposition have the opportunity to redeem at least some of the trust deficit that they have with the Australian people—to stop the class war rhetoric and the politics of envy and division, as those opposite relentlessly persist with.

Australia is advantaged by having a strong alternative government and this House is certainly better if we can have a robust exchange of competing policies and ideas, but there is no way that this House should ever vote for laws which have their genesis in isolationist economics, reckless to the effect on our trade and investment and reckless to nourishing the confidence that is so essential to a flourishing economy.

By passing this bill the House can move Australia forward. We can send a clear signal to this important industry that we support it and that we understand the contribution it makes to our national economy. We can remind the electorate that an adult government and an adult parliament will now legislate for a taxation regime that is actually based on fairness and the encouragement of investment and growth. I encourage those opposite to heed the words of the former member for Batman, to heed those moderate voices in the Labor caucus and to create a welcome outbreak of political common sense. I commend the bill and urge its support in this House. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013, which repeals a profits based mining tax in Australia. It is useful to step through some of the history as to how Australia came to this point. In the late 1980s a profits based petroleum resource rent tax was put in place. It was criticised by many of the same voices that criticise this mining tax on the grounds that it did not raise very much revenue in the early years, but the petroleum resource rent tax has now raised billions of dollars and is an established part of the Australian taxation system.

When the Henry review called for submissions it was the Minerals Council of Australia that put forward a submission to the Henry review arguing in favour of a profits based mining tax. The Minerals Council of Australia did so because profits based taxation is just a more efficient way of taxing resources. If we compare the early part to the late part of the mining boom—say, 2000 to 2007—we will see that the Australian taxpayer in the early period was getting one dollar in three in taxes from mining and in the late period was getting one dollar in seven. That is because under a royalties regime when the world price goes up taxpayers get none of that benefit. They get the volume effect but not the price effect. If the increase in that world price was somehow due to the ingenuity of Australia's miners then that might be defensible, but it turns out that world prices are out of the hands of our miners. They are ingenious in many ways but they do not control the world price.

So just as the Eureka Stockade, as the member for Bass referred to, was a revolt for fairer taxation of miners, taking the view that royalties would be fairer than mining licences, so too this Labor government put in place a fairer scheme of taxing resource revenues. A profits based tax is a fairer approach than a royalties based scheme. This is not something that ought to be a Labor versus coalition divide. Indeed, Sarah Palin made her name as the Governor of Alaska championing profits based resource taxation. It is just a smarter way of taxing resources and its impact comes not only in the boom when taxpayers see a larger share of the revenue but also in the lean times when the effective burden of taxation falls.

We have seen over recent years benefits of the boom flowing to Australians. The member for Bass, the former speaker, was quite right to note that there have been benefits to Australians of the mining boom flowing through, such as cheaper prices for many of our imports, but the mining boom has also placed pressure on the Australian economy, particularly on the manufacturing sector and the higher education sector, which is the sector I worked in before coming to parliament, where a high Australian dollar has made it tough to attract international students.

It is certainly true that previous mining booms and the resource shocks of the 1950s and 1970s pretty much blew the place up. We saw high inflation and the risks of unemployment that were with that. The Australian economy did not suffer those sorts of shocks in this mining boom but it did suffer some considerable stresses and I think many Australians felt it would be fair if mining firms paid a larger share of their revenue in tax.

The House economics committee held an inquiry into the MRRT bill when it came before the parliament. As part of that inquiry we interviewed Mr Julian Tapp from Fortescue Metals Group. I asked Mr Tapp about the corporate tax paid by FMG, which was then a $20 billion company. I asked:

But, in terms of corporate tax paid, it would not be correct to describe Mr Forrest as a taxpayer, would it?

The response was:

Mr Forrest is not a company; Fortescue Metals Group is the company.

I then asked:

But, as things currently stand, it would not be correct to describe—

The reply was:

We have not cut a corporate tax cheque to date, no.

So FMG, despite describing itself as a taxpayer, was not at that point a corporate taxpayer. I think this raised a concern in the minds of many Australians as to why immensely profitable firms should not be making a contribution to the broader Australian good.

We heard, when the MRRT bill came before this parliament a little over two years ago, from the member for North Sydney. The member for North Sydney foresaw it as follows:

This is a bad tax. It will reduce investment and jobs. It will reduce the wealth and retirement incomes of everyday Australians. It will hamper Australia in global competition for scarce capital and jobs. It will reduce investment and jobs. It will reduce the wealth of retirement incomes of everyday Australians. It will hamper Australia global competition with scarce capital of jobs.

He went on to talk about everything from locusts to the plague. To assess those claims we simply have to look at the numbers. Let us look at estimates of expenditure on annual private minerals exploration: 2009-10, $5.7 billion; 2012-13, $7.8 billion. If we ask ourselves are Australians poorer now than they were when the mining tax was introduced, we find the answer again to be a resounding no. Australians' wealth levels have increased significantly.

In this debate the Treasurer would have you believe that this is the only tax whose repeal will make the public finances better off. Somehow the Treasurer has discovered magic pudding economics, through which he can repeal a tax and add money to the government coffers. The fact is the Treasury costings—this is the Treasurer, so they are effectively his costings—put the lost revenue from getting rid of a profits-based mining tax somewhere in the order of $4 billion. Now if the Treasurer wants to stand at the opposite dispatch box and disavow the costings of his own department, if he wants to say that in fact somehow this is a miraculous tax that will raise a negative amount over the forward estimates, I would be fascinated to hear that exercise. Frankly, like every other tax, if you repeal it you will leave the public finances worse off.

At the same time as the Treasurer is repealing a tax whose burden falls on some of the wealthiest shareholders in the world, he is cutting back the income support bonus, cutting away the Schoolkids Bonus, which is a means-tested program that helps Australian families with the cost of education. I agree with the member for Jagajaga on this: the government should have had the courage to introduce this bill not as the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013, but as the 'Minerals Resource Rent Tax repeal and the Schoolkids Bonus repeal and the low income superannuation contribution repeal and the hit to small business and the hit to income support bill 2013'. Were this government to honestly name its bills, then that is what it would be.

This bill concerns me as somebody who is pretty passionate about inequality. I believe that, as I said in my first speech in this place, too much inequality strains the social fabric and threatens to tear us one from another. That a bill which on the one hand delivers an effective cut to unemployment benefits, and on the other hand delivers a huge benefit at the same time to those at the top of the income spectrum is fundamentally against Australian values. Australians value the fair go. We believe that we are a people who ought to work together. That was the principle of the Eureka Stockade, which was invoked by the previous speaker in this debate, the member for Bass, and it is a principle which I believe runs through the Australian social compact. We are a country that does not like tipping, we sit in the front seat of taxis, we believe in the fair go, and we have a tradition of calling one another 'mate' and not calling one another 'sir'. And yet, this bill will probably do more to widen the gap between rich and poor than any bill that has been brought before the parliament over the past decade.

This is a bill which will take us backwards into a system of taxing mining and royalties, which we know not to be efficient. When Labor considered the issue of mining taxation, we listened to the experts. We looked around at best practice for tackling taxation, and it struck us that the approach taken in the PRRT, a profits-based approach, was a fair approach. That represents a rebalancing of the tax scale, and I do want to quote from an excellent new book, Ross Garnaut's Dog Days: Australia After the Boom, in which Professor Garnaut laments:

More and more of the load is carried by income taxpayers with limited opportunities for avoiding taxation, is economically distorting, unfair and probably politically unsustainable.

That is what we are seeing with this bill and with the carbon price repeal bill. Under Labor, we reduced the tax burden on workers, we increased the tax paid by polluters and we increased the tax paid in a profits-based way by mining companies. But if you are to decrease the tax rates on mining companies, if you are to decrease the tax rates on polluters, then effectively the burden will be higher upon wage earners. This is a tax shift, but it is a tax shift in the wrong direction. It is a tax shift that sees Australians pay a higher burden of income tax because if you are not going to ask big miners and big polluters to pay their fair share, then Australian households will have to pay more.

It comes in the context of a confected budget crisis. The Treasurer has come into this House with all kinds of stories about spendthrift ways and spiders—I think some days he thinks he is still over this side of the table. But the fact is that, in the 2012-13 budget—we have seen the final budget outcome released recently—we saw a reduction in real spending of 3.2 per cent and a reduction in nominal spending of one per cent. Stephen Koukoulas has pointed out that a one per cent reduction in nominal spending has never happened before in Australia. That is an unprecedented reduction in government spending. So, when those opposite confect these budget crises—by giving $9 billion to the Reserve Bank that they do not need, by giving a tax cut to large mining companies that they do not need—they are effectively hurting future generations.

I spoke before about the politics of profits based mining taxes. I have given you an egalitarian argument for it, as I would, as a member of the Labor Party. But there is a more conservative, Burkean argument for fair mining taxation too. As Burke said, we are not just here for those generations now alive; we are informed by the generations that have gone before us and by the generations to come. If we tax mining revenue unfairly, then we short-change the generations to come and we hurt the future generations of Australians who will not have the minerals and will not have the proceeds from fair taxation. So even a Burkean should oppose the bill before the House today.

The minerals resource rent tax is a tax which I am sure could be improved. If there were reasonable proposals coming forward from the government about ways of improving the operations of the tax, we on this side of the House would be happy to have those conversations about how to better integrate state and federal regimes. But to simply abolish the tax is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is to leave Australia a little less fair, a little less egalitarian and a little poorer than it was before we found it.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity tonight to speak, or to at least commence my comments, on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013. It was very clear when we went to the last election—in fact the last two elections—that we were opposed to the mining tax. It was in policy statements and there was a very clear understanding. The then government, now opposition, threw everything at us. They talked about the loss of the schoolkids bonus. There is no doubt they had a go at the politics, and in the end they were comprehensively rejected by the Australian people. So it is with a very clear conscience that we come here and present this bill to do exactly as we said we would do: repeal a tax that was ineffective and poorly placed.

I spoke in the last parliament about the mining tax. It was very clear that the former government was basically saying to the Australian people that what is in the ground in Western Australia, for instance, belongs to the Australian people. And yet, throughout history, the reality of the system of royalties has been that what is in the ground belongs to the state and the people—of Western Australia if it is in Western Australia, or of Queensland if it is in Queensland.

We must remember that to bring these resources out of the ground requires money, resources and risk. People actually have to make the effort. It is not like a bag of money buried under the surface and you just brush away the dirt. The former government used to say, 'It's very easy to make the money, so everyone should have their cut of it.' But the reality is that every dollar that is made out of the resources sector requires risk and requires people to put their livelihoods on the line.

What we stand for on this side is, if someone wants to put in the effort—it may be the ordinary person in the street, the small miners, the middle sized miners et cetera—if they want to take the risk, if they want to put the hours in, they should get the benefit of it. Yet this tax represents the Labor Party saying to the people of Australia: 'You don't have to take any risks. You don't have to put any sweat in. You don't have to be away from your families. You're entitled to a cut.' It is typical of that side of politics that it is all about entitlement. If there is something going wrong in your life, what the other side say is: 'Let's look at society first. Let's look at who's ripping you off. You don't need to look in a mirror. You don't need to actually go out there and put some effort in. It's society that is against you.' In the case of this tax, the former government said to the people: 'You don't need to take the risks. You don't need to sweat. You don't need the blood, the sweat, the tears. You don't need to be away from your families. We'll just give you a cut.' Unfortunately it was not just like that. It was a bad concept right from the start. That is the point I am trying to make.

The former government, the Labor Party, as we fought the 2010 election in Western Australia, were using states like Western Australia and Queensland as cash cows. They were just trying to rip the money out. Former Prime Minister Rudd, in his 2007 election campaign, promised an infrastructure fund for Western Australia, but of course, as everyone could have predicted, it never eventuated. Rather than giving that fair deal to Western Australia that he promised, Mr Rudd was behind nothing more than a rip-off. And the subsequent government, the Gillard government, was involved in nothing more than a rip-off of the resources of Western Australia and Queensland—all without justification and all to build an unfortunate sense of entitlement around this country.

Unfortunately, when you look at the detail of this tax and the resource revenues that have been generated out of it, you see that the former government decided to spend money that they thought they were going to make but they never actually made it. This is one of the greatest tragedies of it all and, when I get the opportunity to continue, I will talk some more about this.

Debate interrupted.