Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's failure to provide either answers or an explanation.

This government is just not serious when it comes to the economy. The Prime Minister, because this is the latest fad in her political strategy, thinks she has got to find a way of shifting the debate to the economy—not because she has got something to say, not because the government's record stands up to scrutiny but because one of her advisers, one of her spin doctors, has told her that is what she has got to do. Whenever the government is asked questions about its economic performance, its taxation plans or its spending plans, it ducks and weaves, it goes for the cover-up and it keeps things in hiding.

One of the issues that we pursued during the last Senate estimates, where Treasury took a whole series of questions on notice related to the mining tax, was the govern­ment's proposal to impose a mining tax and spend a lot of money on a whole series of related promises. When there is a proposal to introduce a new tax and when there is a proposal for new spending attached to that tax, the Senate is entitled to know whether the revenue estimates are credible, whether the revenue estimates stand up to scrutiny, whether the spending that is attached to that revenue is sensible and whether the spending estimates stand up to scrutiny. We have been going around this for the last 18 months. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator Wong, today said this has been going on for a long time, that we have had this discussion for a long time. It is true that since July 2010 we have been trying to get answers from this government about its mining tax revenue assumptions and what its mining tax revenue estimates are based on. The answer has been one big deafening silence. The government has not provided a single answer about the mining tax revenue assumptions. Why? Very clearly they have something to hide: the mining tax revenue estimates are entirely dodgy, like the mining tax deal was dodgy. Because there is something to hide, they go for the cover-up. That is why they are refusing to provide answers to entirely legitimate questions.

As we have had this sort of cat-and-mouse game over a procession of Senate inquiries and Senate estimates hearings, I thought I would try a new trick in the lead-up to the last Senate estimates. I wrote a letter a week before the last Senate estimates to the Secretary to the Treasury, Dr Parkinson. I listed in detail all of the areas related to the mining tax where I wanted to ask questions. It was a courtesy, and the purpose of it was to ensure that Treasury officials would be in a position to assist the committee and to provide answers. But, true to form, even though they clearly knew the questions we were going to ask about the cost over the forward estimates of the various promises Labor has attached to the mining tax and even though the Secretary of the Treasury was well aware of these, when it came to estimates a week later they were not able to provide a single answer. This meant that they took all of these questions on notice. So here we are, more than three months later, and we still do not have any answers. We have been pursuing these things for the last 18 months, not getting any answers whatsoever. We gave notice before the last estimates that we would ask these particular questions about mining tax revenue assumptions and the cost of all the related promises. At the hearing the questions were taken on notice, and three months later we still do not have any answers. So we are going around and around in circles.

Next week we are going to have another Senate estimates week. Presumably we are going to ask the same questions again and they are going to be taken on notice again, and in 12 months we might still be going around and around. In the meantime, the Senate will be expected to pass judgment on the mining tax bills without that information, which is completely and entirely unreasonable in the circumstances.

If the government is so confident that the mining tax will raise the revenue it says it will raise, why will it not release the assumptions? The Queensland state govern­ment releases these assumptions as a matter of course as part of its budget papers. The state government in Western Australia releases these sorts of assumptions as a matter of course as part of its budget papers. They do so because their revenue is sensitive to variations in commodity price, production volume and exchange rate assumptions. They do it transparently. The Labor state government in Queensland and the coalition state government in Western Australia do this—it is a non-partisan observation. But this secretive government here in Canberra, in the context of putting in a massive new complex tax on the mining industry, which is a very important industry for Australia, are refusing to be as transparent as state govern­ments in Queensland and Western Australia.

The reason for this is that the government know that their mining tax revenue estimates will not stand up to scrutiny. They know that they have fiddled the figures. They are saying, 'The information is based on commercial-in-confidence data provided by BHP, Rio and Xstrata, so we can't share it with you.' The implication of what the government is saying is that they are prepared to do a deal that is negotiated exclusively and in secret with three big commercial operations in Australia, excluding all of their competitors from the process. Treasury was excluded from the process. This was Prime Minister Gillard, Treasurer Swan and Minister Ferguson with some of their personal staff, together with the managing directors of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, doing a deal on the design of a tax. There were no officials in the room. All of their competitors were excluded. State and territory governments were excluded from the process. They did a deal.

Now the government is telling us that, because the revenue estimates are based on data which these companies have provided to them, these are the only companies allowed to know the government revenue assumpt­ions. That is not right and proper. The Australian people deserve to know, and the Senate deserves to know so that we can scrutinise it—quite frankly, everybody deserves to know. It is completely and highly improper and inappropriate that the government would give such a competitive advantage to the three big miners at the expense of all their competitors in the marketplace.

Why do you think the government is desperate not to release the costings of all the related promises? The answer is very simple: the government has realised that the mining tax package is a fiscal train wreck in the making. The reason for that is that the cost of all of the promises that Labor has attached to the mining tax is much higher than the revenue it will raise. That has finally dawned on them. That is why they are so reluctant to provide answers to these questions, which we have asked for some time now. They know that, once that they provide the answer, it will be there in black and white for all to see that the mining tax package is a fiscal train wreck in the making. Minister Wong again very dishonestly today made reference to this so-called $70 billion black hole—