Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasurer and the Prime Minister have answered this question a number of times, and Senator Cormann is well aware of that response. As he knows, the negotiations with three large miners over the mining tax and the agreement struck following those negotiations involve those companies providing very sensitive commercial-in-confidence material to the government, and the calculations therein were based on that information. The government has released Treasury forecasts of revenue and in all the normal ways made information available, but it is perfectly appropriate when dealing with commercial interests to ensure that those interests are protected when having a frank negotiation with them.

I am not sure whether Senator Cormann has consulted those mining companies as to whether they would be comfortable with their commercial-in-confidence information being released, but it seems to me that it is an unreasonable expectation that Senator Cormann seeks to pursue, one that he knows the previous coalition government—the Howard government—would not have responded to, because it does involve commercial-in-confidence matters and frank exchanges of information that could possibly prejudice people’s commercial interests. But the normal government calculation of revenue and the normal forecasting has been made publicly available, and all that information is available to Senator Cormann and to the Australian public.