Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, how will scrapping the carbon and mining taxes benefit my state of Western Australia?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for O'Connor for his question. If you are serious about helping families, you have got to be serious about cutting taxes. Cutting taxes and reforming taxes start with scrapping the carbon tax and scrapping the mining tax, which are anti Western Australian taxes. This government is serious about scrapping the carbon tax, so serious that legislation to scrap the carbon tax was the first item of legislation introduced into this parliament. Every day this government gets on with the job of scrapping the carbon tax.

The carbon tax is a piece of economic vandalism. That is what it is. It is a piece of economic vandalism which costs the families, the households of this country $550 a year—that is, $550 a year that the Leader of the Opposition wants families and households to keep paying. But it does not just cost families $550 a year. Over time, it will strip $1 trillion out of Australia's cumulative GDP; it will cut iron production by 20 per cent; it will cut aluminium production by over 60 per cent; and the gross national income per head—the money that each of us get every year—will be almost $5,000 a year less with a carbon tax than without one. That is why we will always strive and we will not rest until this carbon tax is gone.

The carbon tax is an anti Western Australian tax because Western Australia is Australia's energy capital. The mining tax is an anti Western Australian tax because Western Australia is the iron ore capital of this country. Everyone knows that these are bad taxes, even the Leader of the Opposition knows that the mining tax is a bad tax. That is why every time he is asked about it in Western Australia, he is reduced to bumbling incoherence. The Leader of the Opposition knows that the carbon tax is a bad tax and that is why before the election he promised to terminate it.

But it just gets worse. Last Thursday in TheWest Australian Labor candidates were saying that they are scrapping the carbon tax. On the very day Labor is saying it is scrapping the carbon tax in Perth, it is voting for it in Canberra. You cannot trust members opposite anywhere near an economy and you cannot trust this Leader of the Opposition with the truth.