Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It is one issue. Senator Cameron says tax is one issue. Well, it's a pretty central issue; let me tell you. When fund managers around the world look at where to invest—let me tell you—the after-tax return is a key issue, and it happens to be an issue that we directly control.

I'll tell you: there's another issue. Sure, the profitability of a company like BHP or FMG and so on is also driven by how much they can get for their commodity exports. But, as it happens, we don't control what commodity prices are globally. We don't control what happens to global prices for our key commodity exports. So we are price takers there.

We control what happens with our policy settings. When you've got countries around the world lowering their business tax rates, it is completely untenable for us to have one of the highest tax rates in the world when we are an open trading economy that is globally focused in terms of opportunities but also globally exposed. (Time expired)