Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to speak on the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Bill 2011. This is a copybook example of how not to implement a policy. The government did not talk to the states who own the resources before it announced its policy. It did not consult with the mining companies which have the right to mine the resources. It did not consult with the Australian people before it announced its original mining tax.

The tax has so many flaws it directly led to the removal of the sitting Prime Minister as an unprecedented event in our political history, an event from which the Labor Party has yet to recover, since it was that event that led them to the arms of the Greens where they are now terminally wedged, Labor wanting to do the right thing by the workers and the wealth creators of this nation and the Greens wanting to progressively shut down our economy, particularly those parts which rely on exploiting our abundant national resources. Most of those resources are in regional Australia and, therefore, it is no surprise that the vote of the Greens is much lower outside the capital cities.

While the mining tax might be the greatest example of how the Labor Party can stuff up a mining industry, it is not the only example. The Labor government in Queensland has acted with similar haste with coal seam gas. Coal seam gas could be a historic economic opportunity for Queensland, particularly western Queensland, but it must be managed properly and a fair share of the benefits must flow to the regions from which the resources come. The Labor government in Queensland has fundamentally failed to strike this balance. It has sold off mining leases.