Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday I was in Moranbah, the largest of the mining towns in my electorate. I was there to open the BER projects—a new hall and a new library—at Moranbah East State School. As I was inspecting the buildings with the principal before the ceremony, he told me that the new buildings had arrived just in time to deal with the expansion the school is experiencing. The number of students at the school has gone from under 500 to over 700 in just a few years. That is because of more kids and more families of more miners coming to work and live in Moranbah. And the story is repeated wherever you look in Moranbah and throughout Central Queensland. Investment in mines and infrastructure is flooding in and workers are following. This is not the story of an industry suffering under any adverse impacts, as alleged by the coalition.

This MPI is about politics, pure and simple. It is about shifting attention away from the shafting the Premier of Western Australia is giving to mining companies in that state and the raw deal he cooked up in last week's budget for the people of Western Australia. Just look at who has put this topic up for today's MPI—not the shadow resources minister, the member for Groom, but the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the Western Australian chief on the other side. She is doing it as a favour for her Western Australian mate Colin Barnett, even though he has just betrayed every promise she would have made in the boardrooms of Perth in the lead-up to the last election. Back then she would have been going from boardroom to boardroom collecting donations for the Liberal Party and promising her mining company donors that she would protect them from additional taxes.

This is the same deputy opposition leader who not so long ago was in Geraldton telling locals:

To impose an uncompetitive tax on this sector of the economy really does damage it.

Who is imposing uncompetitive taxes now? Who is going after an extra $2 billion in tax from mining companies, big and small, the profitable and the not so profitable, with the hike in royalties? Who is putting his state's budget position at risk with a $300 million gap in revenue, as reported on the front page of the Australian today? Who is giving away more GST revenue from the Grants Commission than the hike in royalties will raise for his state? Who is putting at risk infrastructure funding that would actually support the mining industry in Western Australia? It is the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, and now we can see that he has the full backing of the federal opposition for his tax grab on mining in that state.

If the deputy opposition leader was serious about standing up for the mining industry, she would be gathering her Western Australian colleagues together and telling the Premier to stop milking WA's mining companies and to stop selling out Western Australia in terms of GST revenue and infrastructure spending. But, as we have seen, the opposition is happy to let the Western Australian Premier go right ahead with his mining tax grab and even to provide him with cover here in the parliament with stunts such as this one today. I noted before that it was not the shadow resources minister who put this matter of public importance up for debate today. He clearly does not feel the same obligation to defend the Premier of Western Australia.

Coming from Queensland and from an electorate which sits alongside the explosion in resource investment and activity associated with the coal seam gas industry, the member for Groom—as I know you do too, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott—must know that the claims made by the deputy opposition leader and the opposition generally just do not stack up against what anyone in Queensland can see with their own eyes. Every day I open the paper there is a new project being announced: a new mine, a new pipeline, a new port facility, more railway capacity—all driven by an industry that cannot keep up with demand for its commodities. It is an industry whose real life, on-the-ground concerns, away from negotiations and rhetoric about matters like the carbon price or the minerals resource rent tax, are all about dealing with the pressures of growth in the sector—how to get enough workers, how to house them and how to develop supporting infrastructure and industry quickly enough. There is not much evidence in that of these adverse impacts the opposition is talking about. Mr Deputy Speaker, these claims crumble in the face of what is happening all around us in Central Queensland and I know in your own electorate in the south-west of the state. The shadow minister knows it is the same where he is around Toowoomba.

If members do not believe their own eyes, the figures confirm the staggering truth about the scale of the boom we are living through and trying to manage as a government. A snapshot from Central Queensland which was reported in February this year talks about 50 mining projects identified in the Bowen Basin alone, with a potential value of about $20 billion. Twenty-four of these projects are at an advanced stage and include 12 new mines and 12 expansions of existing operations.

A large proportion of my time as the member in a mining region is spent keeping up with what these developments mean for the region and the people living in the mining towns and larger coastal centres, like Mackay and Rockhampton, because the impact a new or expanding mine can have on services and infrastructure—both physical and social—is enormous. As an example, in April the CEO of Anglo American came to Moranbah to announce a $2.7 billion growth plan for the town, including two new underground mines and the creation of 2,000 new jobs over the next five years. As part of the development, the company is going to provide $20 million towards community infrastructure for the town in recognition of the impact this is going to have and the pressure it is going to place on services. That is $2.7 billion just in one town of fewer than 10,000 people. I ask again: how is that indicative of the adverse impacts the opposition is talking about? The fact is that the opposition has to keep attention away from the tax grab by the Western Australian Premier and the betrayal of mining companies and residents of that state.

Sadly, when we should be talking about the substance of the mining industry and the challenges that the mining boom mark 2 presents to our country, this MPI is not about the realities of the mining industry. It is just a political stunt to give cover to the opposition's hypocrisy. On the other hand, the government is focused on the realities of mining boom mark 2. The current mining boom is a once-in-100-years opportunity that must be managed for the benefit of all Australians not just for now but for the future needs of our country—for that time when we do not have the mining boom to hold us up. That is why we have worked with mining companies to design a minerals resource rent tax—a tax that provides a greater return to Australians for their resources and allows the government to invest in other important initiatives that support mining, as well as broadening and strengthening our economy overall.

The MRRT is funding important tax returns. The revenue collected will be returned to Australians in a number of ways. It will help us to broaden our economy by allowing for a tax cut to 29 per cent for all companies, starting from July 2013. Small businesses will get that new tax break from 1 July this year. All Australian workers will benefit from a boost to superannuation savings from 1 July 2013. I know that my electorate is particularly pleased about the $6 billion regional infrastructure fund that will come from the minerals resource rent tax. That is a fund that will pay for important projects like the $120 million for safety improvements to the Peak Downs Highway between the Bowen Basin and Mackay and $40 million to duplicate the Yeppin Bridge and relieve congestion at the southern entrance to Rockhampton.

The MRRT is a tax that the government designed in close consultation with the mining companies that will be most affected by it. It is designed to be more efficient for the companies and fairer for the Australian people, who should benefit from the mineral wealth of the country. The mining sector sees that. Following the announcement of the MRRT on 2 July 2010, the Minerals Council of Australia said:

Today's proposal on a new Minerals Resource Rent Tax stands to deliver a positive outcome for Australia and its minerals industry.

Where is the bit about adverse impacts there? The reality is that the government is responding to the needs of mining companies and mining communities through extra spending on infrastructure in mining states like Queensland and through the funding provided in the budget for training and apprenticeships This is all geared towards creating the skilled workforce the resources sector so desperately needs and ensuring that more people in places like Central Queensland get a foothold in employment in industry. It is geared towards constructing the infrastructure mining regions need to drive the growth in the sector and to enable communities to live alongside that growth. This government will continue to work constructively with the mining industry and continue to show up the opposition for how hollow its claims are to be any kind of friend to the mining industry.

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