Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dobell for his question. It goes to the task of putting in place what the petroleum and minerals industry has long argued for in Australia—a profits based tax system—because they think that is in their long-term best interests. I remind the House that, when we announced our response to the Henry tax review committee report on 2 May, the government established a high-level tax consultation committee. That committee delivered its first report to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer just over a week and a half ago. On the basis of that report, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and I have been deeply involved in discussions with industry about the nature of that report.

I express the government’s appreciation to those companies, both big and small, who have seriously engaged in discussions with the tax consultation committee and with the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and me over the last week and a half. Right across my portfolio, be they in mining, petroleum, coal seam methane or oil and gas, those companies have acknowledged that this is a serious and genuine process of consultation. That was evidenced today by the meeting between the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and me and the CEO of British Gas. She acknowledged the productive nature of these discussions. Her sector, I might say, was the first in the door on 3 May after the government’s announcements of 2 May.

I understand the importance of this sector, because what we are talking about is a new industry. That Queensland project alone represents a potential investment of $12 billion to $15 billion—and the opposition dare to raise the question of employment. This is about major employment opportunities in Australia. I know how disheartened the opposition were last week when they saw the good employment results—a terrific employment result for Australia following the impact of the global financial crisis.

If you have any doubts about the importance of those discussions, I simply say that these discussions with British Gas are not new to the government. The delivery of this project started with detailed meetings with that company early in 2008. That led to an announcement on 24 March this year of the world’s first LNG contract signed between Australia, British Gas and CNOOC. As the Minister for Trade acknowledges, we are talking about a deal potentially worth 3.6 million tonnes of LNG per annum to the Chinese national oil corporation. In volume terms, this is the single biggest company-to-company LNG contract in Australia’s history, totalling 72 million tonnes over 20 years.

For those reasons, companies such as British Gas and others right across my portfolio have approached discussions to better inform outcomes in a productive and constructive way. And so they should, because they themselves argued long and hard that we should put this type of tax reform in place in Australia. They do not like the royalties based system because, when times are bad, they are still required to pay tax. They actually believe that, over time, this will be a far better tax system for them and a far better tax system for Australia. That is what this debate is about. In that context can I say—

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