Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, if they're not doing that, Senator Cameron, I don't know what you and your union mates are doing if they're allowing substandard wages to be paid. I know that's not true, of course, but you always scoff on one hand and, in doing that, you're clearly saying to your union mates they're not doing their job. I know they are doing their job, because all of these Australian companies I mention actually pay proper wages in accordance with the Fair Work Commission and the relevant awards. They're competing against countries with far lower wages. They're happy to do that, but we can help them by at least not requiring them to compete in the taxation area, where their competitors will be paying far less tax, as other countries understand what this is all about.

I also mentioned that in Townsville there's a bit of a difficulty in the labour market, if I can put it that way, with the closure of Queensland Nickel and the downturn of the mining industry generally. But there are two bright sparks in Townsville. One is the copper refinery owned by Glencore, which is one of the companies that are important here. That's why I'm concerned about Senator Hinch's amendment, in that these companies would pay a higher rate of tax than other competitors in Australia and certainly much more than competitors overseas. But I digress slightly. In Townsville we have Glencore, who run the copper refinery. We also have Sun Metals, a subsidiary of KoreaZinc, who a couple of decades ago, at the invitation and encouragement of, I think, the Fraser government, set up in Australia because we had cheap electricity in Australia in those days and they're big power users. They created the zinc refinery in Townsville, which employs a lot of people in the Townsville area, and they continue to try to expand their operations. But they have been struggling as well, mainly because of power prices, thanks to years of Labor governments, particularly state governments, who've been ripping off the energy market.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Senator Cameron laughs at that. I know why he laughs: because he's in cahoots with the Queensland Labor government, who run the only generating supplier in North Queensland. It's a state-government-owned business entity. They gouge the prices and rip-off the businesses in North Queensland. They do that and pay the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains into the Queensland Treasury to try to help Senator Cameron's mates in the Queensland government to balance their books, which they never do, of course.

But Korea Zinc is one of those companies that would not benefit if Senator Hinch's amendment were passed, yet they are struggling to compete with zinc refiners elsewhere in the world. And the list goes on. I urge senators to have a look at the home-grown Australian companies—and there are certainly a lot of multinational companies on the list, who invest in Australia and we want to keep them investing in Australia, because they create jobs—that are trying to continue operating and creating jobs for our fellow Australians. If we can't compete in the taxation area, they are going to struggle to continue to exist. I ask particularly the crossbenches—I know the Labor Party is ideologically opposed to this now, but they weren't a few years ago when Mr Shorten was advocating this!—to have a look at the list of Australian companies that are trying to compete in a very difficult world in many areas where we can't have any influence. But we can at least compete on the tax front. So, I again ask the minister to elaborate on those companies, those home-grown Australian companies—Queensland companies, in my case—that will struggle to compete if we don't have a competitive tax rate. I wanted to speak further, but I know my colleagues have questions that they want to raise with the minister, too, so I will leave my contribution there, but perhaps later on the minister might be able to respond to some of the questions I have raised.