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

This is a mob of people who, at a time when our mining companies have record profitability, some making super profits, have the view that the mining industry is paying too much tax. What planet do they live on? The mining industry is paying too much tax! So when we put in place a regime which picks up the resource rents and uses that money to cut corporate taxes, they oppose it. The once great Liberal Party have come to that. It is just unbelievable that they could oppose a revenue stream from a resource rent tax on the mining industry, particularly one which is going to assist the savings of people on low incomes, build infrastructure and give a corporate tax cut. ‘Oh, no, we can’t have that. We should give the miners more money. They should pay less tax.’ Nothing demonstrates more than that how incompetent and bizarre those opposite have become in the bitterness of their opposition.

We also saw this kind of display when it came to the flood levy. Before then, there had never been a levy that Tony Abbott did not support. He supported six levies while the Howard government was in—never a levy he did not support. But then a levy came along that was for Queenslanders and Victorians, and he voted it down. It was a modest levy, far less than any other that he had voted for previously. Yet again, this demonstrates how irresponsible and reckless the Leader of the Opposition is.

They have another big lie about tax. That mob opposite was the highest taxing government in Australian history. They got the tax to GDP share up to 24.1 per cent. The other lie is their pretence that a global recession never happened. They pretend it did not happen and talk about the fact that we should not have gone into deficit to fund the stimulus. But what if we had not done that? Where would Australia be today? Unemployment would be far higher. Tens of thousands of businesses would have hit the wall. We acted responsibly and, all the way through that, we got more of this opposition. They opposed us every step of the way, once again proving that they are simply not capable or up to the mark when it comes to modern economic management. When this country was threatened by recession, we put in place a world-class stimulus which produced world-class results for Australia. The reason that unemployment at the moment is at five per cent is that the actions of this government put in place the correct economic policy to support our economy at a time of need. And we were opposed every step of the way. We were opposed when we put in place the bank guarantees that were absolutely fundamental and we were opposed on the stimulus, because they are not up to handling the big challenges that Australia faces. All of that is now surfacing in this very important debate.

Of course, the Leader of the Opposition was talking about Treasury modelling as though somehow what we are doing now is absolutely identical to what was done in the CPRS. I do recommend reading the CPRS material—and he did use some of it—but we have not yet taken the decisions on coverage in this emissions trading scheme. So there is no way anybody could make the sorts of assertions they have been making about cost impacts.

But there is one big difference between us and those on the other side of the House: we will provide the assistance to households that are affected. There is no plan for assistance by the opposition to provide for all of those people who are being hit by rising electricity prices right now. We will do the right thing by the people of Australia, the right thing by our economy in the long term and the right thing by our industry so that we can put in place the reforms which will produce the next generation of prosperity in this country and maximise all of the opportunities that should flow to this country from the mining boom. We will get the investment in renewable energy that is required. All of these things are essential decisions for Australia. They are the hard decisions and they are the decisions that the Liberal Party has not got the guts to take.

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