Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. In light of the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that foreign corporations are paying only 13 per cent tax, is the minister aware that a good example of the counterproductive nature of foreign takeovers and the appallingly failed ‘marketism’ policies of this place is that the one million people living in North Queensland are now to get their milk from southern Queensland, 2,000 kilometres away, while North Queensland’s Malanda Milk, locked out of Woolworths and Coles, must travel 2,000 kilometres south? Is the minister further aware that Woolworths and Coles, with 83 per cent of the food market, are paying dutch auction prices to the dairy corporations? This oppressive pricing from the chains has seen 240 North Queensland farmers tortured down to just 60. Five dairy companies, all once Australian owned, are now, bar one, foreign owned. Finally, our six giant mining companies were all Australian owned pre-marketism but now all are foreign owned. Why should the super-destructive Henry mining tax be applied when a small increase in tax on all foreign corporations would ease the very real threat to the only vibrant industry Australia has left—mining?

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