Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

That was very telling, Senator Joyce, to see these people who have allegedly ripped up the marriage certificate there in deep discussion. We will see what comes from it.

Which senators thought they knew it all? Which senators believed that guillotining 150-plus bills through the Senate was part of the new paradigm? You know, democracy at work? That the Senate would be given a proper role? Remember, what an affront it was to democracy—and I address these comments to our friends in the media gallery—and remember how the keyboards tapped away when the coalition guillotined 30 bills through the Senate in a full term? Five times that number have been guillotined in half the time, courtesy of the Green-Labor alliance in this place. I trust the keyboards will be suitably fired up.

To the Greens and the ALP senators' enduring shame, it was them who foolishly—soaked in their own self-importance and convinced of their own superior intellect—guillotined this flawed legislation through the Senate. But worse than all of this, this is the government that has also forced through this place billions of dollars' worth of expenditure predicated on the income of the mining tax, which disappeared like this morning's mist in Canberra.

Labor has again broken its own limbo record on public policy with the mining tax. No-one gets lower than Labor when it comes to public policy debacles, and the mining tax is an excellent exemplar. Yesterday's much-heralded reform is now another Labor policy dud.

I say to the Australian Greens: we can have all the faux outrage, we can have all the foot stomping and we can have all the ripping up of agreements at the National Press Club, but today the Greens have an opportunity to tell the Australian people whether they have confidence in the government's handling of the mining tax. The difficulty of course for the Australian Greens is that they helped ram it through. They helped guillotine it through the Senate, ensuring that there was no proper debate and ensuring that all the issues that we as a coalition wanted to ventilate would not be ventilated—despite their promise of a new paradigm. But today the Australian Greens can tell the Australian people whether or not they have confidence in the way that the mining tax was handled.

Let us be very clear, especially in relation to the answer given by the Leader of the Government earlier on in question time. Senator Conroy sought to put all the blame in relation to the debacle that is the mining tax at the feet of variable pricing of commodities.

Well, I am sure Senator Conroy was actually present at Senate estimates when the Secretary to the Treasury told the truth about these things and, of course, Senator Wong would have been there as well, one would hope. The Prime Minister has not only reneged on the promise of the carbon tax—not having one—she has also reneged on giving a commitment to providing monthly updates on the mining tax revenue—a rolled gold, solid commitment and, once again, broken. At Senate estimates, just a fortnight ago, the Treasury secretary, Dr Parkinson, admitted that the design of the mining tax is responsible for its failure to generate revenue, not the falling commodity prices and not the higher currency and state royalties blamed by the government. It is for exactly that reason that the Chief Government Whip, Joel Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter, has indicated to the public that he believes that there is a design flaw in the system. I can understand Senator Wong's embarrassment at this because, as the minister for finance, she should have had control of this issue. She never has had and she never will because she is like all her colleagues around here: economic illiteracy is their strong suit.

But what did Dr Parkinson say? He said Treasury had compiled its budget forecasts in ignorance of the real cost of concessions agreed to by Mr Swan. Now why were they in ignorance of that? Because the deal was done in secret without Treasury officials present. They are the architects of their own debacle. They thought they knew it all. Take the master negotiator, Ms Gillard, who negotiated a deal with Mr Wilkie only to welsh on it, and who did that wonderful negotiation with Mr Slipper, the member for Fisher. What a great thing that was to have him elevated to the Speakership! And now, to complete the trifecta, we have the master negotiator exposed in relation to the mining tax. We have design flaws courtesy of Ms Gillard and Mr Swan thinking they knew it all, thinking that they could outsmart the three CEOs of the big mining companies. Guess who won? If you could have a sweep on it I reckon Sportsbet would have laid the odds pretty heavily in favour of the three CEOs.

Of course, unfortunately, we are now paying the price. Part of the price that we are paying is that the Labor government sought to sell this so-called reform to the Australian people on the basis of a whole range of goodies and bribes to the electorate. This is what Labor are all about: they want to buy their way back into government and on the way attack Mr Abbott. But what I say to the Australian people, through this forum, is this: the mining tax has failed. Take all the predicated expenditure which was also rammed through this place courtesy of the Greens-Labor alliance and is now clearly unaffordable on all the evidence. Who is going to pay for it? Future generations, because the government have now abandoned their promise of a surplus. If ever there were a case for young Australians to vote for the future of their country, it is this, to vote for the party that actually believes in intergenerational economic responsibility. To keep on maintaining the debt levels that we have today and try to keep our lifestyle as it is, lumbering the cost with interest onto the next generation, is an example of the gross incompetence of the Labor Party. Dr Parkinson's testimony to the economics committee disclosed quite clearly that Mr Swan was either grossly negligent or grossly reckless. We do need and deserve an explanation from the government as to how this debacle was able to be achieved. It was all their own work—we know that—because they specifically dismissed the Treasury officials. They were so smart they only had to work this out all by themselves with three CEOs! Yet we have the audacity of the Leader of the Government in the Senate trying to claim that somehow 'we do deals with rich miners'. Excuse me, but who did this deal and got done over by the three richest mining companies in Australia? Minister Conroy, you and your government did—your Prime Minister and your Treasurer—and that is the legacy that will be left, and will be remembered by the people, because of this government.

So what we have here is a gross example of ministerial incompetence mixed up with ministerial arrogance as they are thinking they know it all and then when the problem blows up, who do they blame? 'It's the states' fault but we didn't consult them' or 'It's the territories' fault but we didn't consult them' or 'It might be the miners' fault and the Treasury's fault.' When you do not include the people in the equation you can hardly blame them afterwards for the debacle. There are two people who are at the head of this government—the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer—who personally negotiated this fatally flawed deal, a deal which has punched a billion-dollar-plus hole in the government's forward estimates of billions and billions of dollars—and those are thousands of millions of dollars. Keep in mind, if you want to get an idea of how big that is, that they trumpeted that a $1 billion surplus was going to be a huge economic outcome. Multiply that but in the other direction—negatively—and that is the hole that is now left in the budget courtesy of Ms Gillard and Mr Swan—all their own work because they knew better than Treasury officials. So it was not surprising that, by implication, the head of Treasury dumped on the government by saying it was not the fault of commodity prices—that it was not as the leader of the government in this place sought to say—but was the fault of the scheme and its design. As I have said before and as I will say again: when even your own members, like Joel Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter, understand that and your own Leader of the Opposition, desperate to win some votes in the west, is willing to say it is fatally flawed and hugely damaging to the sovereign risk reputation of Australia and to forward mining initiatives—when Labor doyens like that can acknowledge it—one wonders why is it that Ms Gillard and Mr Swan cannot.

One reason is their own pride—it was all their own work, so they cannot admit that they made such a fatal mistake in the design. If you have a fatally flawed scheme, at least make sure, if you are going to devastate our sovereign risk reputation, that there is a dividend on the other side of the ledger. Our sovereign risk reputation has been trashed without any real money being collected on the other side. This is the classic loss-loss that only those with the ingenious nature of Ms Gillard and Mr Swan could think up and produce.

This is serious. The mining sector in Australia has been its mainstay for a considerable period. This Labor government has sought to kill the goose laying the golden egg for the Australian economy. Fortunately, in this absolute debacle they have simply wounded the goose and it has flapped away. We hope that the likes of Joel Fitzgibbon and the Australian Greens will not get their hands on the mining tax and complete the job.

Honourable members interjecting—

Senator Cameron continues to talk across the chamber about Gina Rinehart. What his fascination with her is we do not know, but we do know that Ms Gillard had a fascination with the three top mining companies in Australia and they did over her and Mr Swan. They were done like a dinner. Labor is now confronted with the embarrassment of it all, and the Australian Greens are scrambling around for advice because they guillotined this tax through the Senate, they forced it through the Senate, and then, in a bit of a temper tantrum at the Press Club recently, they ripped up the agreement, with Adam Bandt saying that this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The mining tax is a destructive tax cobbled together by a dysfunctional government. That is why the Senate should declare that it has no confidence in the government's handling of the mining tax.