Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

(I rise also to make a contribution to the legislation before us today: the Minerals Resources Rent Tax Bill and associated bills. I stood in this place last week talking about the private health insurance bills and said, 'Wouldn't be great if, just once, this government could give us a decent piece of policy to debate?' We see a lot of commentary from the other side not only in this chamber but also in the other place about the supposed negativity of the coalition, the supposed negativity of the leader of the coalition. If the government gave us some decent policy, we would not have to say 'no'. It is as simple as that. It is not 'no' for no's sake. It is 'no' because the policies this government continues to put before us and before the Australian people are so bad. The minerals resource rent tax is no different.

The shambolic process that we are seeing in the development of policy is gobsmacking. Again, the minerals resource rent tax has thrown us up that same shambles. This is a piece of legislation that is unfair, complex, divisive and fiscally irresponsible, and yet the government is putting this up, saying, 'Isn't this a wonderful piece of legislation,' and 'This will be great for Australia.' Quite simply, it will not. Interestingly, when we look at this shambolic process, again it throws up the nature of this government and its inability to properly go through a process to give the Australian people decent policy and decent outcomes.

Let us have a look at how this turned up. There was the initial RSPT, which was announced without any consultation with anyone. The government put together what it thought was a great policy, the RSPT, and brought it forward. It absolutely got howled down by the entire industry, it seemed at the time, as well as by many others simply because the government had not even bothered to consult. It had not bothered to talk to the industry or to the people that the RSPT was going to impact to see if it was even going to work or to see if industry could even deal with the implications of that particular piece of legislation. What was extraordinary at the press club, which was very recently on 5 March, was the Treasurer talking about that. He was questioned about the process of the RSPT and the fact that the government had come under fire from all quarters. The Treasurer said:

And if we could have sat down in greater detail with the mining industry following our announcement and worked our way through those issues then we might have had a less bloody and bruising experience.

Again talking about the RSPT, he said:

But the real thing that meant that we could get it done was that when we sat down, we got for the first time from the companies, information that neither the Henry Inquiry nor the Treasury had, which was the real story about volumes and price.

That is after the RSPT—that is talking about the new configuration—and the Treasurer is saying, 'This is the first time we have actually sat down with the industry.' When they were talking about the new form of legislation we were going to have post the RSPT: 'Oh yeah, first time we'd sat down with the industry.'

I wonder if it had actually ever occurred to the Treasurer initially to talk to industry about the initial policy. Clearly it had not, and yet we had as recently as last week the Treasurer saying, 'Oh yes, this was the first time we got to sit down with the companies.' It is entirely his responsibility. It was entirely his bailiwick to talk about those impacts of the initial RSPT with industry in the first place. How stupid is that? Why would you not as a government take the opportunity to discuss the potential impacts of a significant piece of legislation with the industry it is going to affect? It is just extraordinary and yet another example of this government's inability to properly go through a process, to properly consider implications and to properly consider any unintended consequences from pieces of legislation. They are just doing it on the run and they are completely inept.

We have this situation with the Treasurer, who eventually thought it might be a really good idea to sit down with industry and see if they might like some kind of minerals tax part 2. But then, when he ended up sitting down with industry, how many companies did he talk to? Three. Three of the biggest miners—and that was it. Not inclusive, not talking to the whole range of hundreds of other companies this was going to affect. He did a deal with the big 3.

I do not know about you, Mr Deputy President, but to me that is not consultation. That is picking and choosing to try and get a piece of legislation through from this cobbled together Greens, Labor, Independent government—whatever it is that is actually running the country at the moment—and speaking to three of the big mining companies. I find it absolutely extraordinary for this Treasurer to initially have no consultation whatsoever and then: 'Let's see now. I have a few hundred, I don't know, 700 or 800 mining companies this is going to impact. I know—I'll talk to three! Three would be good. Three is a good number. I like the number three. That sounds like a good idea. I will talk to three of them and see if I can get them to agree.' This is completely unfair and illogical for the government—for the Treasurer—not to include consultation with the entire industry. It just goes to show that the government was merely trying to get a piece of legislation through the Parliament, not trying to develop legislation properly for the industry, and again shows just how inept this government is when it comes to developing policy.

The Henry tax review was supposed to be about root-and-branch reform to deliver a simpler, fairer tax system, but what we have actually got is something that is more complex and less fair. We have got something like another 287 pages of tax law and an unfair competitive advantage to big end of town. It simply does not make sense. Those on the other side go on about the great virtue of, 'We all own the minerals and it has got to be fair for everyone and we all deserve a share'—well, we get that through the royalty system.

The fact is there has to be recognition given to the companies who are investing in the industry in the first place. There has got to be recognition given to the productive capacity that those companies provide. You cannot simply say, 'Gee, all of those minerals are under the ground and we deserve all of them,' when we have got these companies who are doing the investment, who are taking the risk, who are at the coalface—pardon the pun—doing all of the work to extract the minerals. You simply cannot discount that. What they are doing in their contribution for this nation at the moment is nothing short of extraordinary. In a lot of ways they are actually holding up a very inept government, making the country look good. It is those men and women out of the ground in the mining industry, the agriculture industry and our small businesses right across the country who are holding this country together, who are providing the productive capacity for this nation in spite of the government, not because of the government we have in place at the moment. That is just wrong, and it is no surprise that so many people are coming up to me at the moment and saying: 'Will you please get this government out of office. We need a change of government. We have no confidence in this government.'

You can really see it. When I am out in regional communities and moving around, it is still very under the radar, but confidence has gone. Money has stopped moving. We have got small businesses running accounts out to 90 days, effectively working as banks because of the lack of confidence in the ability of this government to run the country, and that is a very sad state of affairs.

It is going to leave the budget worse off and, when we have got now a debt of around $232 billion, a piece of legislation that is going to leave the budget even worse off is absolutely extraordinary. Keep in mind, colleagues, as my very good colleague Senator Williams knows only too well, the ceiling is $250 billion.

We are getting very close to that $250 billion ceiling. Do you hear the government talk about that very often? No, you do not. You hear them talk about this legislation before us—the Minerals Resource Rent Tax—and how terrific it is. It is actually going to leave the budget worse off, and we have a situation—is it not extraordinary colleagues that when we came in we left the Labor government a surplus—where we now have a $232 billion debt and the four biggest deficits in a row that we have seen in this country in decades. The fact that it is going to leave the budget worse off is just extraordinary. Again, it is dividing the industry. It really is the big three and the rest. It has become David and three Goliaths, and it is really dividing the nation and dividing the industry. How would all of those other companies have felt when the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, went in and talked to the big three but did not bother talking to any of them? What are they, chopped liver? They deserved as much consultation with the Treasurer as any of the big mining companies did. I think it is simply appalling.

What is extraordinary is that this legislation is just another example of shambolic policy when it comes to regional Australia. This government simply does not understand regional Australia or regional communities. Extraordinarily, this Labor government thinks metropolitan areas should be treated as regional. This is how incredibly inept the government is at delivering for regional communities—it is looking at metropolitan areas as regional. This mining tax is going to fund the Regional Infrastructure Fund. It is interesting that the biggest allocation from that fund so far is $480 million. This is hugely significant. Nearly half a billion dollars is going out from the Regional Infrastructure Fund, and where did that $480 million go? To roads around Perth Airport.