Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What the opposition say is that they oppose the minerals resource rent tax, but this is merely code for supporting tax cuts for their billionaire mates—some of the richest people, if not the richest people, in the country. In government, they say, they intend to repeal the MRRT. We know what will result from that—attacking low-paid workers to provide tax cuts to billionaires. How on earth is that good for all Australians?

Senator Smith talks about how the MRRT is bad for jobs and bad for Australians. How can this minerals resource rent tax be bad for Australians when the reason we are taxing mineral resources is that they belong to the Australian people? The mineral resources of Australia belong to all of us and we should all therefore have some say in how they are used and we should all get some dividend, some benefit, from their exploitation. It should not all go to the billionaires—the ones the coalition want to give a tax cut to—but should be shared in by the Australian people. As my parliamentary colleague Senator Marshall remarked: 'Once they are dug up, that is it; they are gone. We do not have them anymore. Once minerals are dug up, they are gone.' The minerals resource rent tax is about delivering something to the Australian people. This country and its minerals belong to all of us and we should all have some say in how those minerals are exploited and we should all share in the benefits when they are dug up and sold.

In looking at the design of this tax, let us go back to minerals 101. The tax is linked to commodity prices. Because it is linked to commodity prices, if commodity prices fall, as they have over the last year, the tax revenue collected is not going to be as high. It is pretty basic. The coalition argue that the minerals resource rent tax has not delivered enough tax—but, in the same breath, they say that they would repeal the tax, that they would not have the tax. They cannot have it both ways. They do not want the tax to exist, but now, while it does exist, they are saying there is not enough of it. So what is their position? Which way do they see this? I think they are just playing politics—nothing else. It is not about the fact that we have minerals in the ground, the benefits of which need to be distributed fairly, and it is not about giving a return to the Australian people—it is simply politics. It is simply going around in a circle and talking about nothing.

On this side of the chamber, we pursue policies which are good for Australia and good for the Australian people.

That is why we have introduced the minerals resource rent tax. That is why it is designed the way it is. When commodities are down, yes, there will not be as much revenue coming in, but when they are up, there will be and that will be returned to the Australian people.

Senator Brandis referred before to the fact that we have some failed public policy. Let us talk about the coalition's public policy—at least the things they have so far on the record. We could look at the failed public policies of the past, of Work Choices—the policy that got them out of government when the Australian people voted them out—or we could look at the current public policies, at the issue of GST. I understand Mr Joe Hockey is in my home state of Tasmania today. I have not heard one senator from Tasmania ask Mr Hockey, or anyone in this chamber, whether or not they support the coalition's policy of reforming the GST, of ripping $700 million from the Tasmanian budget. Here is Mr Hockey today, pretending he is a friend of the people in Tasmania. No-one should be fooled by that because that is exactly what they intend to do. (Time expired)