Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Hindmarsh for his very important question, because there was extensive consultation with the mining industry prior to the report from the independent tax committee and, of course, there has been extensive consultation since that time. Indeed, it was the Mining Council of Australia that made a submission to that committee arguing for a profits based tax. This is something that is not accepted by those opposite. They do not think that there should be a replacement of mining royalties with a profits based tax. That is not even a position which is held by the mining industry itself. So we can see that those opposite simply do not have a clue about what they are saying and that has been demonstrated in the House today.

We saw the appalling ignorance of the Leader of the Opposition getting up and comparing mining companies to all other corporates in Australia in terms of the charges that they have to pay. No other company in Australia gets access to a free public resource. No other company in Australia has access to something which is owned 100 per cent by the Australian people.

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