Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

As I have already stated, it can take months for higher spot prices to be fully reflected in MRRT revenue, as trades can be conducted on monthly or even quarterly averages. Resource rent taxes are, by their nature, volatile and difficult to forecast on the basis of spot prices. As the ATO commissioner has noted, collections rose significantly between the first and second quarters. This is at the same time as we begin to see some recovery in commodity prices. So it is clear, as I have said, that Treasury forecasts were ahead of the actual revenue coming in, but this is due to the volatile nature of resource rent taxes and the difficulties of forecasting. (Time expired)