Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Why not? Come in spinner. Journalist: ‘But can you explain the detail of how like if I point to that product over there, can you explain to me how that tax would interact with it?’ Abbott replied: ‘Well, well, the tax falls on everything which is extracted from the ground.’ That is the point, Leader of the Opposition. This is not an extraction tax. It is not a production tax. It is a tax on profits. On the first principle of tax reform, he does not get it. He says it is a royalty tax based on extraction as opposed to a tax on profit. The Leader of the Opposition, we know from the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, does not actually think economics is interesting. We know from the former Treasurer that he would never have appointed him as Treasurer of Australia, but not to even understand that the RSPT is a tax on profits and not on volume and extraction and production fails Economics 101.

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