Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Water) Share this | Hansard source

The imposition of this super tax on the resources industry by the Rudd government is an attack on the mining industry of Australia; it is an attack on the miners and their jobs in Australia; it is an attack on the contractors and small businesses who support the mining industry in Australia; it is an attack on household budgets in Australia; it is an attack on the shareholders in these companies that operate in Australia; it is an attack on the superannuation recipients whose funds have invested in these resource companies; and it is an attack on self-funded retirees.

Never in my lifetime have I seen such a reckless approach by any government in its attempt to destroy the Australian resources industry. This is an industry that has supported this country through a series of recessions and has ensured a standard of living in Australia that we all enjoy and are proud of. This industry has done nothing to deserve the gutless attacks it has received in the past three weeks from those who sit opposite. I never, ever thought I would hear the language that has been used about mining industry leaders by everyone from the Prime Minister to the Treasurer to backbenchers who are scared of losing their jobs at the next election. The Prime Minister tried to invoke not only xenophobia but also the tall poppy syndrome, asking Australians to question the motives of people simply because they have been successful. I never, ever thought I would see a leader of this country stoop to that.

I never thought I would see a situation where we have the Treasurer of this country accusing mining industry leaders of being either liars or ignorant—liars or ignorant. These are the fathers and mothers of industry in Australia, these are the people who have put Australia’s resource development on the world map, these are the people who have provided jobs directly and indirectly for millions of Australians, and yet the Treasurer’s description of them is that either they are lying or deliberately putting out mistruths or they are ignorant—that is, they do not understand the way of the world.

Surely not—surely the Treasurer would not be referring to someone who once referred to him, the Treasurer, and his counterpart the Prime Minister as ‘Labor brothers’. This is a former Labor state Treasurer, a person of distinction within the Labor Party in Queensland who held office in the Goss government in which the Prime Minister had a prominent role. Yet the Treasurer has referred to him as either ignorant or a liar. I refer of course to Keith De Lacy, a person I have considerable time for, a person I had considerable time for before I came to this place. Mr De Lacy said the Treasurer’s claims are wrong, highly misleading and offensive. That was in relation to the Treasurer’s claims that mining companies were lying about the amount of tax they paid.

We are now in a situation where the head of the third largest resources company in the world, Rio Tinto, is describing Australia’s mining tax as being ‘the biggest sovereign risk facing the miner anywhere in the world’ and certainly Australia as having a sovereign risk profile which requires him and his companies to reassess billions of dollars worth of investment here. It is not just the dollars of investment that we need to worry about; it is the tens of thousands of jobs that go with it. It is the returns by Rio Tinto that go back to the shareholders of Australia—and that company has an Australian listing; it has a very long and proud history of investment and employment in Australia—to self-funded retirees, to superannuation holders and to people who have had the courage to invest in an industry that has underpinned Australia.

These men do not speak lightly of their concerns, nor of the impact that the mining tax will have on their companies. They are bound by an obligation under the director laws of Australia not to lie. The Treasurer may not understand that. He has probably never done the Australian Institute of Company Directors course. I have. I understand corporate responsibility. I understand director responsibility. I understand the requirements by law that if you abuse them you will go to jail. I understand that what these people are saying is true. And I understand that, when you combine that with a great Australian, someone whom we have all looked up to in our past, Mr Herb Elliott, who is the Chairman of Fortescue Metals, that we have someone with integrity in terms of both his own character and of course his director responsibilities.

Today, the Chairman of Fortescue Metals Group wrote to his 55,000 shareholders advising them of the company’s rejection of the federal government’s proposed resource rent tax. The letter to the shareholders, which is available on the Fortescue website, states that the government’s proposal is akin to ‘a socialist style funding and tax device’ and is ‘bad for every Australian’—every Australian. Who is going to benefit from this tax? It is not the people who work at the mine sites, not the small businesses who support them, not the shareholders in the company, not the self-funded retirees and certainly not the people who want to see Australia prosper.

We have heard a lot of figures recently in relation to Treasury documents. If I had more time I would revisit the comments about what a fraud has been tried to be perpetrated by quoting documents, in one case from the University of North Carolina in an undergraduate work associated with a professor. The professor clearly stated that those documents were never to be used for a tax model and I have that document here. The other document, of course, that we saw rushed out overnight was the document purporting to be the Treasury analysis of the taxes in relation to the issue of company tax. On the bottom of the document Disparities in average rates of company tax across industries the authors, Peter Greagg, Dean Parham and Pero Stojanovski say:

The authors are from Business Tax Division, the Australian Treasury. This article has benefited from comments and suggestions provided by Paul McMahon and Shane Johnson. The views in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Australian Treasury.

So desperate is this government they will grab anything to back up their case, anything to try and add a shred, a tiny modicum of credibility to this dreadful, dreadful tax. It is a tax that is destroying Australia’s resources future. One Treasury has been able to make comment because it is not bound by those who sit opposite and that is the Treasury of Western Australia. The WA Treasury said in the budget papers:

… that the risks and uncertainties leading up to the planned introduction of the resource super-profits tax could deter investment in the state’s resources sector, which would affect economic forecasts badly.

It goes on:

There is a risk that the commonwealth’s proposal … will have a significant impact on the level of future investment in the mining sector in Western Australia.

Where do we start to look for evidence of that. There is so much evidence. Do we start with Southern Cross Portfolio Ideas, who today said:

Claim and counter claim between Canberra and the mining industry is doing Australia incalculable damage in the eyes of foreign investors.

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To me this is like having a fight with your wife at a restaurant. It is destructive, unnecessary and classless.

The Prime Minister can argue that the Australian dollar fall has nothing to do with the RSPT. The market facts beg to differ from that. This document continues through a series of charts comparing our dollar’s fall with the Canadian dollar and with every other major currency to highlight the fact that this government is destroying the resources industry in Australia. We have Moody’s, who are well-respected and impartial with nothing to gain either way who have said categorically that the RSPT:

… could reduce earnings for firms by nearly a third after it takes effect in mid-2012.

That is a 30 per cent reduction. The list goes on from JB Were, Citi, UBS, JP Morgan. These are people who understand the market unlike those who sit opposite. These are international companies that understand how the markets works. Perhaps the small miners might think this is a great tax but, again, the list goes on of companies that are opposed to this tax. It is too long to read in the moments I have left but the list has Milan Jerkovic of Straits Resources, David Robb of Iluka Resources, Paul Pike of Mulgundawa Salt, Will Robinson of Encounter Resources and Michael Weir of Gindalbie Metals. It is a long list of companies who say this tax is bad for Australia. So who says it is good? The Canadians, of course. They think it is fantastic. Brad Trost MP said:

So I’m sending out the message—Canada wants Australian business.

What is Rio’s response to that? Rio Tinto is a company that has resources in Canada. Obviously they have to consider that and Mr Tom Albanese said:

What may be Australia’s loss from the resource super profits tax will be Canada’s gain.

He warned that his company and fellow Australian miners were likely to give preference to developing resources in overseas companies. Even Papua New Guinea is licking its lips at the opportunity to see Australian companies turned away from Australia and investing in PNG. The list goes on and on.

I have not had time in this speech to talk about a key issue. That is the opportunity for Indigenous Australians that is presented by the resource sector in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland. Let me quote from Indigenous businessman Barry Taylor who said:

When something like that affects the mining industry, if cuts are going to be made, generally there are two people at the bottom of the food chain—that’s the contractors and the blackfellas and in most cases we are both, particularly up in the Pilbara.

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If mining companies are going to say ‘we are going to get taxed on a lot of our profits,’ it is just going to make it difficult for those types of companies to invest in the region and the Pilbara, in particular, has massive Aboriginal communities surrounding the mines.

This is a disaster for regional Australia, it is a disaster for urban Australia and it is a disaster for all of Australia. (Time expired)

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