Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset I should say that this bill from the opposition, the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Amendment (Fair Indexation) Bill 2010, is consistent with the Australian Greens policy at the last election. Therefore we take seriously the role we have in considering this legislation and its potential passage through the Senate and the parliament. It does raise the questions of financing that have been put before the Senate by Minister Evans and by Senator Feeney. That has put onto the opposition an onus—which the Greens have maintained is necessary with legislation that costs taxpayers—to find a means of funding such a bill. That said, the opposition has today come forward with a potential funding mechanism. The opposition’s document begins:

The purpose of this document is to outline a savings offset of $175 million squared to fund the coalition’s military indexation election commitment. This will be achieved by reducing the growth of APS fulltime equivalents in the Department of Defence including DMO by 33 per cent. This will still see the number of staff in the Department of Defence including DMO grow in size by 8.3 per cent by financial year 2013-14 compared to a budgeted 12. 6 per cent.

Then the figures are as outlined by Senator Ronaldson.

A serious proposition has come before the Senate. In these circumstances what do we do about it? I foreshadow the amendment I have had circulated that the Greens believe that the better option is for the funding to come through a reconfiguration of the mining resource rent tax. The amendment reads:

At the end of the motion, add:

but:

(a)

the Senate is of the opinion that these reforms should be funded through a reconfigured mining resource rent tax, as recommended by the Treasury, that would generate sufficient additional revenue to cover the costs; and

(b)

a message be sent to the House of Representatives informing it of this resolution and requesting its concurrence in the resolution.

The Treasury figures that we are most recently acquainted with do indicate that, if a proper superprofits tax were placed on the burgeoning iron ore and coal sectors of the mining industry in Australia, an extra $100 billion would come into the public purse over the next 10 years. That is an average of $10 billion per annum. We believe that is a fair tax. It is still going to leave the industry very profitable but it is going to make sure that money from the once-only exploitation of the nation’s resources is available to fund the liabilities that government has for the future—whether they be in education, housing, transport or defence. We do not dismiss lightly the need for that tax to be levied and I note that the opposition does not want to raise one cent of tax. It would forgo $145 billion over the next 10 years, $14.5 billion per annum.