John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take your interjection, Senator Furner. So all the royalties would be credited. Who do the minerals belong to? Who is responsible for them in the ground? The Crown. That is correct, isn't it, Senator Ludwig?

An honourable senator: The Aboriginals.

'The Aboriginals', Senator Ludlam says. So they own all the resources? Here is another tack thrown in. The way Campbell Newman has increased his royalties is on a pro rata basis. Once the price of a commodity gets over, say, $100 a tonne, then the royalty increases. But, if the price goes down, the royalty is reduced, to give business a fair go. I have no problem with the states raising the royalties. They have control of the minerals in the ground—the same as coal seam gas and oil, after the then Premier of New South Wales, Neville Wran, took control off the farmers in New South Wales in 1981. The same thing happened in 1971 in South Australia and back in 1915 in Queensland. Senator Ludlam, that is when the states took control of those resources off the farmers.

I have no problem with the states raising royalties. I think it is only fair that we get a fair share. The states can then use that money on their schools and their hospitals. All this federal government had to say in the COAG meeting was: 'You state blokes, you state guys, you state ladies, you state ministers, raise your royalties and we will give you less money from Canberra,' and do a balancing around the states—of course some states have much more mining than others—and just let the states raise their royalties. It is their commodity; it is their resource. They are finite and we want to get our share to benefit all the people who live in our states. And the feds would just simply pay less money to the states. Money saved is money made. But, no, they wanted to go and get control of it, and the states of course became recalcitrant and said, 'We'll raise our royalties'—as they have every right to do.

That is what this is about. It gets back to the point about the budget surplus. How many times did we hear about the 'not negotiable', 'ironclad' budget surplus that we were going to see in the financial year we are in now? Was it two or three hundred times? It will be interesting when we get to Mr Swan's budget come May to hear what his predictions are for this financial year. But, Senator Mason, we know one thing for sure: there will be no surplus. We need this Labor Party government to go to the dictionary and actually see what the word 'surplus' means, because they do not know what a surplus is. During the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating government the Labor government delivered four surpluses, and we have had five years of this government. So 13 and five is 18. After 18 years in government there have been four years of surplus. It has been many, many years—we are probably talking about decades—since we have seen a surplus from a Labor government. So they have probably forgotten what it means. We know they will not deliver one of them.

As far as this tax goes, we argued that it was no good and we argued that it was rushed—have a look at the recommendations that Senator Cormann's select committee handed down—and we stand here in hindsight and say, 'We told you so.' But it came into this chamber, and the Greens—who are very big supporters of guillotining debate in this place and teaming up with the Labor senators to get the numbers—pulled the guillotine down and said: 'Stop debate. Don't have any more discussions; let's just pass it.'

But now it is all wrong. It has all turned to tears, so we will guillotine the debate on this tax, rip it through the Senate and get it into place. Then it all turns to tears when it does not work. But there is one thing worse: the money that has not been raised has been spent. That is the problem. Labor said, 'Yes, we'll give company reductions to small business.' That would be good, but we never saw them. 'We'll put into superannuation to build up the super funds.' No, stripping the money from these big companies, which are owned in some respects by the super funds, is taking money away from every working Australian. That is where they have their money invested to get a return for their super funds.