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

I rise this afternoon to make comment on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 6) Bill 2014. I wanted to talk specifically about the fuel tax credits in schedule 4. The Australian Greens do not support this schedule because it reinforces this government's budget priorities of benefitting the wealthiest in our society, while imposing burdens on those who are the least able to absorb them.

The fact of the matter is big miners should pay more for their fuel, as everyone else is expected to do under this government. But, of course, what the community has not picked up on in the course of this debate on fuel excise, as has just been outlined by Senator Cameron, is that, with an increase in the fuel excise, the big miners have put out their hand to say they want an increase in the fuel tax rebate. In other words, they will not pay a cent more for their fuel under this government's proposition. It is exactly as Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson said of the big end of town—that their philosophy on tax and their whole perspective on tax is to:

… take from the citizenry at large and give it to [us].

That is where the big miners are coming from.

In this whole debate, when the government proposed increasing the fuel excise, they were silent on the fact that that would cost the budget greatly because it would increase the amount that they gave back to the big miners who would not be paying a cent. And that is appalling. They tried to sell this argument about a fuel tax excise. In fact, it has been extraordinary to watch Senator Cormann stand here and try to argue that it is an environmental tax. What a joke! They are actually going to give it all back to the big miners so that they can pollute as heavily as they like. But, what is more, they want to spend any money that is raised on roads to expand urban sprawl, to increase congestion and to actually increase gas emissions. Once you build those freeways, add more congestion and push out the edges of the cities, you have no public transport, and the poorest people, who live further from the centre of the city, drive the oldest vehicles and have the least access to public transport, are the ones who suffer.

I want to come to this particular point about this schedule, because, make no mistake, schedule 4 says that the big end of town does not have to pay anything. Why should Gina Rinehart get cheap fuel when ordinary commuters suffer? Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, and his government want to back the big miners, continue to give them the full fuel rebate, including this increase, and make ordinary families pay more under a budget that targets the most vulnerable. Billionaire mining companies should not have a free ride on fuel excise while everyone else has to pay. The Greens have always said that farmers, who need our support, should continue to receive it through the fuel rebate, but the big miners cannot have it both ways.

Frankly, I have never witnessed such a brazen attempt by any prime minister to ruthlessly and so quickly impose such a vindictive, hard, cruel and ideological agenda on the Australian people and our environment, and then try to justify it by concocting a fake national budget emergency. It is breathtaking to watch the Prime Minister and his Treasurer and finance minister try to con the community into believing that everyone has a moral obligation to share the burden of a confected crisis, arguing that the burden is being shared fairly whilst making absolutely sure that the full weight is carried by those who have no power to fight back—the young, the sick, pensioners, students and those least able to able to shoulder it, not to mention the natural environment and future generations. If you are privileged, the Liberals will protect that privilege; if you are already struggling, they will stamp you down and make your life harder.

It is very interesting that when there was some speculation that the diesel fuel rebate may be cut in the budget, who was the first in the Treasurer's office? BHP Billiton. There we had Andrew Mackenzie directly lobbying the Treasurer, saying, 'Do not touch BHP's fuel rebate.' On April 28, there was a confidential brief that was leaked with the miners rushing to the Treasurer, saying that any substantial change to the rebate would have a worse impact on them than the mining tax. In fact, if you look at the figures, it is absolutely disgraceful to see the billions that are going to be lost over time as a result of allowing the big miners off scot-free while requiring the community to pay.

This schedule will cover the difference between the fixed 38.14 cents per litre in excise and the twice yearly increase in the CPI indexation. Our amendment will prevent the big miners from being eligible for fuel tax credits. They would have to pay excise for fuel, like everyone else is expected to do. Currently, the big miners receive a gift of $1.5 billion in fuel tax credits from the repeal of the carbon price. The carbon price meant that they got 6 cents a litre less in their rebate than they otherwise would have done. When the carbon price was abolished, they got that full rebate back. That is $1.5 billion that the deal between Prime Minister Abbott and Clive Palmer delivered to the big miners. It is no surprise that, of course, Mr Palmer owns one of the big miners who benefited enormously from the repeal of the carbon price. The schedule, which people did not understand at the time, gave every big miner a 6c-a-litre additional rebate in their fuel tax credit. While we have the ABC being cut by $264 million, here we have in the budget this year the likes of Gina Rinehart, BHP and Mr Palmer, our member for Fairfax, getting—as I said—$1.5 billion in fuel tax credits. So anyone who thinks that this is about a budget emergency is totally wrong. This is about a choice by the Prime Minister to look after the mates at the big end of town and expect everybody else to pay. They are laughing all the way to the bank—the whole lot of them—in this case.

This schedule will give a further $720 million to them over the forward estimates in lost government revenue. That means it is a total of $2.2 billion that the big miners are going to get from the abolition of the carbon price and this increase in the fuel tax rebate to them—a nice little earner for nothing. They get off scot free on any increase in fuel excise. Why is that fair? How is that fair? It is not fair. It is because they fronted up in the Treasurer's office, and the government said: 'Don't worry; we'll look after you. You're the big mates. You're the big end of town. We'll look after you. Give us another cigar. That'll be all good. Then we will take it out of the pockets of the rest of the community, and we will sell that as a way of building roads to add more congestion, more greenhouse gas emissions and nothing into public transport.' It is really a Neanderthal way of behaving. We are in the 21st century. It is just utterly ridiculous that this is the case.

In line with the Greens policy, farming businesses that are eligible for the fuel tax credit should see those credits rise in line with movements in fuel excise. However, this schedule would compensate multibillion-dollar mining companies for all their expenditure on fuel excise. As I said, this measure this afternoon will cost the budget around $720 million over the forward estimates for the miners alone. Everyone who has been rallying around the country for the ABC, just listen to that again: what we are doing here today on this bill is giving the big miners $720 million while saying to the ABC, 'Sorry, guys, we're taking a couple of hundred million out of the ABC and SBS, but we want Gina and all the friends over at the big miners, BHP and the rest, to benefit from this.'

The Greens have always said that farmers who need our support should continue to receive it through the fuel rebate, and that seems to be the case. But it is clear that the big end of town is not doing any heavy lifting in the budget, and the age of entitlement has certainly not finished for the mining corporations. There is no public policy rationale for multibillion-dollar mining companies to receive taxpayer funded subsidies for fuel use in their operations. Not only is it an unjustifiable waste of public money but it distorts energy generation on mine sites, favouring diesel generation, which is rising in cost against clean energy and storage, which are falling and are cost competitive without the fuel tax credit for the mining operations. Not only is it grossly unfair that what we are doing here this afternoon, if the government has its way, is giving the big miners an extra $720 billion, but by making their diesel cheaper for them it means that they will not move to solar and battery storage for electricity generation on their sites. They will continue with their generators, their diesel fuelled operations. It is just the wrong way of going.

Subsidies for miners are popping up everywhere in greater exploration deductions, and in Queensland last week miners were told that they could have unhindered access to limited water resources and no longer have to go through licence approvals. What an extraordinary additional subsidy! This is ridiculous. Exactly at the same time, the Queensland government has taken the ecologically sustainable development principles out of the legislation. The intention is clear: take out sustainable development principles from the legislation and give the big miners unhindered access to water in a country where we suffer drought.

Do you know what is going to happen, Mr Deputy President? The farmers will have to come here and ask for drought assistance and assistance with water, and who will have gone and taken all the water but the big miners? It is just an extraordinary thing. We are coming into an El Nino. We are going to have accelerated global warming and an El Nino on top of it, and we have the Premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman, giving the miners unhindered access to limited water resources.

Never ever assume. When the coalition stand up anywhere in the country and say that they are being responsible about water, they are not. They are saying to the miners, 'You can have the water first.' Whether it is the mining operations with coal or coal seam gas or anything else, they can have the water. The environment can lose; the wetlands can dry out; the farmers can have their water contaminated; the groundwater can be contaminated, but never mind. So long as the miners want it, they can have it, and they can be exempted from the environmental assessment that is needed for the licence approval.

This statutory right to take water shifts costs onto farmers, who have to prove damage—technical and legal costs, for example—to local water resources before a mining company has to make good. So the farmers are going to have to pick up the costs—and this is the National Party delivering this, the National Party agreeing to this nonsense whereby the farmers are going to have to pick up the costs—against the big miners.

Gina Rinehart, who became Australia's richest person, valued at $20 billion on the BRW Rich 200 list, recently signed a $200 million deal with Caltex to provide her Roy Hill iron ore mine with 120 million litres of fuel. Under current laws, our Treasurer, Joe Hockey, will be writing her a cheque for $45.6 million for this agreement, rising over the life of the project under this bill. Who in their right mind could believe a Prime Minister or a Treasurer or a finance minister who gets up and tells the Australian community that there is a budget emergency when they are about to write a cheque for Gina Rinehart for $45.6 million for her 120-million-litre contract with Caltex to provide her mine with fuel?

That is how ridiculous we have become in this parliament. We are at the end of a cruel budget year, and what we are pushing through here is an increased rebate to the big miners. They got their 6c dividend with the abolition of the mining tax, and now they are getting an increased fuel tax rebate so that they do not have to pay anything additional and the rest of the community does have to pay anything additional. We are just seeing the most ridiculous position being put here. That is why I will move an amendment when we get to the committee stage to take out schedule 4 so that the rebate does not flow to the big miners. It should not flow to the big miners. They should have to pay; that is the fact of the matter. You cannot argue that the age of entitlement is over and then provide the entitlement to the big mining corporations in Australia. After their big success in the budget, having had the government back off getting rid of their fuel tax rebate, they are now going to have three successes this year. They had no reduction in their fuel tax rebate in the budget, they had the abolition of the carbon price, so an extra 6c went back to them, and now they are getting an extra $720 million out of the fact that the fuel excise has increased and therefore they get the full increase rebated to them.

We will hear, no doubt, from the finance minister about how he believes that an increase in the fuel tax excise is a climate change related policy and that is why they are doing it. If they are doing it for the environment, then they should abolish it for the big miners for a start and assist the budget in that way. But we all know that this is a load of rubbish and that all we have here is a revenue raiser from the government to take the money out of the pockets of the community and give it back in full to the big miners. The government, at the same time, will spend on roads which will increase congestion, urban sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. We are already seeing greenhouse gas emissions rise because the finance minister, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister decided to get rid of the carbon price and forgo billions of dollars in revenue. We have seen the figures that came out in the last 24 hours. Once again emissions have gone up in Australia as a result of that action, and we are going to see that continue. Now we have a flurry from the government, thinking that they might now subsidise nuclear energy, because there is only one way you could ever get nuclear up in Australia, and that is with another massive government subsidy.

I end where I began. I remind the Senate of what Martin Parkinson, the Treasury secretary, had to say:

… take money from the citizenry at large and give it to me.

That is the philosophy of the big end of town in Australia. That is not the Greens saying it; that is the Treasury secretary saying it, and that is exactly what this is doing. This is saying: raise the money with the fuel excise from the citizenry at large and give it back in full to the big miners so that they can continue with their success with this government in getting rid of the mining tax, getting rid of the carbon price and making sure they hold their total fuel excise and all of the other subsidies that they benefit from.

Is it any wonder that the community recognises that this government is not governing for all Australians? It is managing to reward those who are extremely well off. Let us look at how much it is costing the community collectively. This is huge. The government intends to get $1.26 billion in savings from making the unemployed wait for six months and here the collective benefit to the big miners as a result of the government's activity is $2.2 billion. I think that tells the story. I look forward to moving my amendment in the committee stage.