Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the pathetic effort by Minister Carr to try to defend Prime Minister Rudd’s absolutely indefensible supertax on the mining industry in this country. In recent weeks, the Prime Minister has made Australia the laughing-stock of the world. He has put Australia in the situation where the Canadian Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, has indicated Canada will now have a tremendous competitive advantage. That minister is over here looking for opportunities. There has been a massive reduction in the value of Australian resource companies in the last week and a half. With it, we have seen a massive erosion in the value of superannuation and shares for Australian retirees and Australian workers—the very people those opposite should be standing up for and defending.

Amongst other things, the Prime Minister has vilified foreign investment in this country. When since 1788 did we use anything other than foreign investment to support and grow industries in this country? As has previously been said, we are already seeing the major mining companies walk away, close up investments and close up opportunities. We now have the Prime Minister and the Treasurer saying, ‘Why don’t they come and talk to us?’ Surely they learnt something from the emissions trading scheme—that is, that they should have gone and spoken to those companies in advance.

We have had figures presented to us in the last few minutes, but let me give you the figures from the Australian Taxation Office on the contribution of the mining sector to this country. According to the ATO, the resources sector pays 13 per cent more tax than any other sector in this country. In the last year alone, the resources sector paid to Australian governments, federal and state, $22 billion. When added to the $22 billion surplus that this government inherited from the previous government, they have squandered $44 billion plus, plus and plus.

Do not go past what the Wall Street Journal said last week. It said, ‘This economic thinking runs counter to everything that has made Australia rich.’ So what have we seen in recent times? We have seen losses. The super funds of retirees and working Australians have gone out the window. Seven hundred thousand Australians have shares in BHP, quite apart from those who have super funds. We just heard the senator opposite speak about the petroleum resource rent tax. Does she not understand this: firstly, it is a tax at the government bond rate plus five per cent, and it is only a prospective tax not a retrospective tax; secondly, the offshore oil and gas industry does not pay royalties to any states. In the petroleum resource rent tax we have this factored in. This stupid tax is being set at the bond rate, currently six per cent. I invested some money the other day for an elderly relative in a nursing home. I rang my bank and they said, ‘We’ll give you six per cent while that person does absolutely nothing for it.’

What an absolute joke this is. We have been made a laughing-stock. Only in the last week have we learnt about the $170 billion of projects in the mining and resource sector and the 500 companies—not just one, two, three or four big companies. As the Queensland Labor Premier and the South Australian Labor Premier have both said in recent days: ‘This is a disastrous tax; it has got to be reversed.’ Let us look at Labor’s gambling for a moment. Under this new tax, this nationalising of the Australian mining industry, we have the government sharing the profits.