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

I do thank the member for Capricornia for that very important question because she does represent an area in this country which is producing an enormous amount of wealth for Australia and, like many other mineral-producing regions and resource-producing regions, that region suffers the stresses that come with the mining boom, as well as many of the great benefits. What this side of the House is really proud of is that we have put forward a landmark Labor reform, which makes sure that very profitable mining companies, superprofitable mining companies are returning some of those superprofits to the Australian people for the resources the Australian people own 100 per cent and which can only be mined once.

We are proud of what we are doing in this House to ensure that we then spread the benefits of that boom to every corner of our economy, because we do have a strong but a patchwork economy in Australia. Not every small business and not every family is in the fast lane of the resources boom. The whole idea of resource rent taxation is to take those superprofits and give a hand to those people who are not in the fast lane. The first place we can do that is with a very significant tax cut for small business—2.7 million small businesses right around Australia getting the benefit of the $6,500 instant asset write-off, a huge boost to the cash flow of small businesses right around this country. They are looking forward to that.

We will also invest in infrastructure in many of these regions where they are really pressed for roads and other social infrastructure through strong population growth. We are doing this particularly in Western Australia and other places where the mining industry is strong, like the Illawarra or the Hunter in New South Wales and in Queensland—taking the benefits of the boom, spreading them around the country. The thing we are most proud of is investing in the superannuation of Australian workers. That is just fantastic: building the savings of Australian workers, particularly low-income-earning workers; 8.4 million individual sovereign wealth funds all benefiting from our changes to superannuation. And who is opposing this? Those opposite—Dr No over there, no to everything. They do not think it is good to use the superprofits to assist people who are not in the fast lane. Now that the legislation has come into the House—and they are going to oppose it—they are arguing for a tax increase for small business. They are arguing for lower superannuation savings for Australian workers. This just shows how out of touch they are, how economically illiterate they are and how completely incapable they are of running a modern economy.

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