Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I foreshadow, then, that I will be moving a further second reading amendment. I foreshadow that I will move:

  At the end of the motion, add:

     "but the Senate is of the opinion that the repeal of the Low Income Superannuation contributions should not be concealed in this legislation as it will:

  (a) diminish, by around $27,000, the retirement savings of one in three Australians,

  (b) negatively impact on almost one in two working women and 80 percent of women who work part time, and

(c) will place further pressures on future governments due to increased costs to the aged pension."

Having foreshadowed that second reading amendment, I want to go to the particular case of Western Australia.

All the talk relating to the Western Australian Senate by-election has been about what the Liberals' plan for Western Australia is. The plan is: get rid of the mining tax—as if that is going to help people in Western Australia. As I said, it is not helping people in Western Australia when it comes to jobs, because job numbers are falling. The fact that Minister Abetz has tried to stand over the Public Service and make them massage the figures shows you that the government knows jobs are not going to come from mining.

In the midyear economic update, it was forecast that jobs in the mining industry would fall by 4.5 per cent. After you massage those figures to give you what the government wants—that is, the government's so-called one million jobs plan—the fall would be 3.2 per cent. Even with the massage, it is a fall of 3.2 per cent. But that shows you that the government knows full well that getting rid of the mining tax is not going to help Western Australia. We already have a massive fall in job numbers in the mining industry.

In addition to that, when you consider what Western Australians will lose—in particular when you take away the low-income superannuation entitlement—you are looking at significant losses for people in Western Australia. By keeping the mining tax and restoring it, the Greens will save 469,344 Western Australian families $881 million over four years. By not repealing the mining tax, you actually help people in Western Australia. By repealing the mining tax, you do not.

If you look at the savings measures, you see that the government is making a cash grab—to the value of around $27,000, or 15 per cent of expected retirement savings—for the retirement savings of one in three workers. That means that, in Western Australia, 353,613 workers will be punished and that, every single year, $93 million in retirement savings will be lost. That is pretty significant.

In this Western Australian by-election, once again we are back to slogans. What is the government's plan for Western Australia? 'Repeal the mining tax.' What does that mean, though? Nobody has said to the people of Western Australia, 'Actually, more of you will be worse off if you repeal the mining tax, because the low-income superannuation contribution is gone.' That is pretty significant and I think people need to be aware of the extent to which this is hidden in the slogan. It is hidden in the slogan about getting rid of the mining tax that they are also going to get rid of a decent retirement for low-paid workers in Western Australia. That is a message we intend to be out there delivering very strongly to people in Western Australia.

We will not stand by and see those who are currently benefiting so much from megaprofits continue to do so at the expense of the poor in our community. Rio Tinto last year made a profit of $9.5 billion from iron ore and paid no tax. BHP Billiton made an after-tax profit of $6.5 billion from Western Australia's iron ore in its last half-year and paid only a very small amount of tax. Then there is Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals. It made $1.7 billion last year but paid no mining tax—and so on and so forth. You get this happening over and over again.

What is clear from talking to people around Australia is that jobs are more important than returning the budget to surplus. They want to make sure that there is a plan for post the mining boom. I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President, the Abbott government have no plan for Western Australia post the mining boom. All they see is more mines. They do not recognise that the future for Western Australia is in something very different. That is why the Greens' plan is out there as a very stark alternative, and that is: let us actually use the benefits of the mining boom through the superprofits tax; let us restore the tax and have that money circulating so that we can spend it on the education, research and development that will be necessary to sustain us in the long term.

That is now supported today by a report which has been brought out by Deloitte. It identifies 25 areas that could provide a vital cash injection into the economy and produce jobs to fill the void from the resources boom that is winding down. We do not agree with everything they have said. We certainly do not agree with their idea of next-generation nuclear energy, but we are absolutely on board with solar. Solar energy and the jobs in renewable energy are much more important to Western Australia in the longer term than abolishing the mining tax.

I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, that the loss of the renewable energy target in its current form will have a mega impact on jobs and businesses in Western Australia. So what we are seeing here is the Abbott government motto: 'Let the rich get richer; let the poor get poorer.' Let those who donate to the Liberal Party get maximum benefit, and those who stand to lose—low-income earners—suffer the most. That is why we should not be repealing the mining tax but instead fixing it so that we get the returns to spend in the community.