Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Repealing the mining tax would destroy a precious opportunity that we have, not only to help vulnerable Australians now but also to set the scene for the future, to ensure that we have a strong, safe, sustainable community that shares in the profits from our resources. The government would have you believe that this is about the economy and jobs, but this is really about allowing their big business mates and their big mining mates to make more and more money from our resources and to send more of it overseas. These resources are finite; once they are dug up we do not get a second opportunity to dig them up. We will have wasted the opportunity to ensure that the benefits from those resources flow to all in our communities, not just to the government's big mining mates and not just to the big end of town. Once the profits from those resources are shipped overseas, communities will not benefit and a section of our Western Australian community has not been.

The government keeps saying that miners have been hurt by this and that it is affecting our economy. We need to bear in mind that miners have hardly paid anything. In fact, they have not been hurt by this tax because they have not been paying this tax. The mining tax is a mechanism for the people of our nation to gain from the exploitation of our resources. In fact, the government wants to get rid of this tax just as it is starting to make money. It is no wonder it is in such a big rush to get rid of it: so it can help its mining mates. The mining boom is in the process of transitioning from the capital intensive phase to the production phase. That is beginning now. Of course, this is just when the superprofits will occur. The revenue from production will rise while they are less able to deduct capital investments off what they should be paying.

Mining companies have been able to price their assets using today's inflated market values and then claim massive annual deductions under this amount, not what they are actually spending on capital investment. Once again, another reason they have not been paying the mining tax is that they are able to write down those capital investments. But now, as we move more to a production phase, they are not going to be allowed to do that.

As Senator Milne outlined, we proposed amendments to the previous government's weakened mining tax. In fact, we would have had much more benefit if this chamber and the government had accepted our amendments to that mining tax. Nevertheless, this tax is important to Australia. It is important to Australian communities and particularly the most vulnerable communities. As Senator Milne pointed out, mining companies are largely foreign owned—83 per cent—so the money that is made from our resources is largely benefiting shareholders overseas. The profits are being exported along with our natural resources. Rather than addressing this, unfortunately the ALP weakened the previous version of the mining tax and caved in to the mining industry. The tax's loopholes and weaknesses have seen this policy fall well short of what it could have delivered. Rather than fixing it, however, Tony Abbott is moving yet again in favour of businesses and overseas shareholders to get rid of this tax, and that is at the expense of the Australian people.

This repeal will significantly hurt low-income earners and the most vulnerable in our community. It is unfortunate that yet again the interests of big business are being put ahead of the environment and the Australian people. Rather than better schools and universities and help for Australians living in poverty—better housing and infrastructure—cuts are being proposed and made across the board. We know from the government's hyperbole that there will be more cuts in the Commission of Audit, cuts which this government refuses to articulate before the Western Australian by-election on 5 April. Maybe on 6 April, after Western Australians have voted, the government will release what they intend to do with the budget—what cuts they intend to make, how they intend to further hurt Western Australian families. But, of course, we will not know that until 6 April or beyond.

The government is giving tax breaks to these big companies at the same time that they are slashing necessary supports. This bill contains measures that affect the schoolkids bonus, a payment that families rely on. People in Western Australia do not live in the land of milk and honey as some would like to think we do on the back of the boom. Try buying a house in my home state of Western Australia. If you want to find an affordable rental, or buy a house, it is further and further out of the reach of people on low incomes. Look at the increasing number of homeless people in Western Australia and the unending disadvantage of Aboriginal people in Western Australia. They are not the people who are making money from the boom; they are the people who should be helped by a mining tax. In Western Australia we have squandered some of the benefits of the boom. Many people are hurting and we have a dual economy; there are those who have been able to gain from the boom and those who have not been able to. The benefits of the boom have not been shared. We need a mining tax so that we get better sharing of the benefits of our resources.

Some Western Australians have seen some benefits from the boom, but not all have benefited equally. The state's lowest income households are falling further behind the rest of the WA population. The mining boom has driven up the disposable income of some Western Australians. But, as I said, not everyone has been gaining those benefits. A Curtin University report called Sharing the Boom, released just recently, showed the distribution of income and wealth in WA. It shows the gap between the rich and the poor, and that it is growing. The wealthiest 10 per cent of households earn up to four times as much as the poorest. The report's author, Alan Duncan, says the mining boom improved the circumstances of many households in Western Australia but there has been a rise in income and wealth inequality: The 'The gap between the richest and poorest households in WA rose consistently since the acceleration of the mining boom in 2003-04 to its peak in 2009-10 and at a greater rate than the rest of Australia. The highest-income households are getting richer and the medium-income households are also earning substantially more. But the lowest-income households in the state are falling further behind. Income growth across the boom period has created a greater gap between high- and low-income households both in terms of income and wealth and low-income families in WA have failed to share the benefits of the boom at the same rate as higher income households, which emphasises the need to support those people on low incomes, who may not benefit from the same standard of living increases experienced by the rest of the population.' That is what a mining tax is for: to help the people who are not benefiting from the massive profits that the mining companies are making from the boom.

And then there are the impacts on other industries in Western Australia such as agriculture and other sectors. For example, the aged-care industry cannot compete with the higher wages that are paid by the mining industry. Of course, areas such as aged care and the community sector have been highlighted in the Deloittes report, released today, about where our new jobs are going to come from.

The repeal cancels some important payments and supports that are offered to vulnerable people across Australia, who I have just highlighted as having not benefited from the resources boom. These are important payments for people in Western Australia. This tax should be about sharing more equitably the benefits of our resources. The government says that it cannot afford to increase Newstart; that it cannot return single parents to the parenting payment; that we need to slash the number of people on the disability support pension; and that we have to raise the pension age, because there are too many older Australians. It says we cannot afford this but, apparently, we can afford to get rid of a tax that is about sharing the benefits of our resources.

If we had a proper mining tax, we could afford to raise Newstart and help single parents and people with disability. Then of course we would not be denigrating those people with disability, which is what this government is trying to do in order to justify cutting funding for them. And we would not be condemning older Australians to living on Newstart, because we want to raise the pension age. We would be able to afford to look after our fellow Australians, those who are doing it tough and who are the most vulnerable in our community.

Let us have a quick look at the mining tax. The combined half-yearly profits of the big mining companies are $14.6 billion. Without the MRRT in place, their profits would be $14.81 billion. While, in the scheme of things, that difference is a lot of money, they are not paying enough to the Western Australian community. They make $14.6 billion after the mining tax.

The government, instead of fixing the mining tax, want to repeal it. They want to make Australians pay to go to see their GP rather than standing up to the mining industry and making them pay from their superprofits, which is a lot of money. What we have made from the mining tax is a small amount, because the mining companies browbeat the previous government and have now talked to their mates in government and want to pay nothing rather than the small amount they have paid—out of what, by anybody's standards, is a large amount of money.

The mining industry oppose this tax. Basically, they do not want to pay anything that they do not have to out of their superprofits on the resources that belong to every Australian—and from which, as I have articulated, every Australian should benefit, not just some, as is happening in Western Australia.

Let us look at some of the programs that will be cut because the government wants to support its big business mining mates. Firstly, the schoolkids bonus. This will impact most significantly on low-income families and single parents. Single parents who have already suffered blow after blow and who live in poverty have been dumped onto Newstart. This will make it even harder for kids to do well at school. Kids cannot do well at school if they are living in poverty.

Then there is the low-income superannuation contribution. At the same time the government talks about the need to increase the retirement age, because Australia cannot afford it, this government is making a cash grab on retirement savings of one in three workers, to the value of around $27,000, or 15 per cent of their expected retirement earnings. Again, get it? Low-income superannuation! In other words, this is about some of the most vulnerable workers in our community. This measure was designed to help those on low incomes and those on fixed incomes under $37,000 a year build up a modest amount of money for their retirement.

This will particularly affect women and young people and those who are employed on a casual basis. Industry Super Australia has said that axing the rebate will affect around two million working women, including 80 per cent of female part-time workers. Getting rid of this measure will deplete the savings of one in every two working women. This is hurting Australians. These are the people who should be sharing in the superprofits made from mining our resources. Older workers, particularly women, already face discrimination in the workplace and I have spoken on that issue in this place many times. They face a variety of obstacles to improving and expanding their superannuation. This measure makes it even harder. This contribution attempts to redress the inequities in our superannuation system, which favours high-income earners but does not significantly help low-income earners.

Repealing this contribution will place a greater burden on future governments by increasing the reliance on the age pension. Of course the government wants to increase the pension age and keep these people in low-income situations and poverty even longer. This is a stupid measure. The message is: if you are on a low income, particularly if you are a woman, this government does not care about you; it cares more about facilitating its big business mates.

The government are also getting rid of the income support bonus. This was put in place to help those on certain income support payments prepare for unexpected living costs. The payment is $105.80, if you are single, and it is paid twice a year. You may not think that this is a significant amount of money, but it is if you are living in poverty on Newstart. It is important. It can make the difference between being able to pay a bill or not or being able to meet a rent payment or not. It is important to the most vulnerable in our community. Taking away what, to them, is a relatively small amount of money—but to vulnerable Australians, every cent counts—is cruel and mean. That money counts.

These are just the payments that will be cut when this bill is repealed; but then there are all those programs that will not be funded—for example, what about the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness? In Western Australia, we have 9,592 people who find themselves homeless every night. Of these, 15.6 per cent are under the age of 12. People in Western Australia find themselves homeless for many reasons. But the fact is that rents are high, so affordable housing is impossible to find, as the cost of housing has been driven up by the boom—the benefits of which, again, have not been shared equally, with the gap between rich and poor having increased. This is another program that may not be funded by this government because, they say, they do not have the revenue. Here is a mechanism to raise that revenue and to share the benefits of our resources in a more equitable way.

We have the government talking about making a two-tier system for people with disability: there will be the deserving people with disability and the undeserving people with disability, who may be stuck on Newstart for an exceedingly long time. Again, the government says, 'we are doing that because we do not have the revenue'. And what about the NDIS? The government is dropping hints all the time about slowing down the rollout because there are problems with it—but it is not just about that; it is because they do not want to pay for it.

We have people living in poverty on Newstart. The government will not even give them a modest increase of $50 a week—which does not even cover half the difference between Newstart and the age pension. The government says the age of entitlement is over—but not if you are in the mining industry or if you are a big business. The mining industry does not want to pay its fair share for our resources—money that will help the most vulnerable in our community and will also help people plan for the future. The government seems determined to make the lowest income earners and the most vulnerable members of our community pay for the fact that it wants to give big miners tax breaks. Once again, the government is making it clear that those people are not important.

The Greens plan would have made significantly more money out of the mining tax. But, by not repealing this, we help 469,344 Western Australian families and we help them keep $881 million over four years—by not repealing this tax. Repealing this tax is a bad move. (Time expired)