Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am well used to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition thinks that politics is about abusing me, not describing policies in the nation's interest. Of course, what it does is disappoint working Australians that each and every time the Leader of the Opposition is called upon to turn his mind to the national interest he just says no. As the Leader of the Opposition well knows, the government entered an agreement with Australia's biggest mining companies, through a process of consideration and work through a policy transition group involving the Minister for Resources and Energy as well as the Deputy Prime Minister. We have worked through to settle the details. We have determined that it is the right thing that super-profitable miners pay more tax. Whilst they are at this period of our nation's economic transformation and the transformation of the region in which we live where they can command superprofits, they should pay more tax so that Australians can share in the benefits of that resources boom.

I well understand that the Leader of the Opposition, if required to choose—as he was last night—between the interests of working Australians and small business entrepreneurs and businesses in other sectors outside mining and the interests of those super-profitable big miners, will tick the super-profitable big miners on every occasion. Between a working family and a big mining company, he picks the big mining company. Between the interests of a small business entrepreneur, working hard day in and day out to provide for their family and to employ other Australians, and the interests of a big mining company, he will choose the big mining company. Rather than the interests of an Australian working hard so that they can have a decent retirement, he will choose the interests of the big mining company. That is what he voted for last night; that is what every member of the coalition—with one notable absence—voted for last night. They voted for big miners who have agreed to pay more tax and to get that tax back, to the detriment of working Australians and their jobs around this nation. The Leader of the Opposition knows that they are the facts and that is where his relentless negativity has led him. He has no policies in the interests of working Australians. Whenever he is called upon he bandwagons with the big miners, as he just did in that question.

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