Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the MPI in regard to the adverse impact of the government's mining and taxation policies on industry investment and government revenue. I could have just omitted the words 'mining and taxation' and left 'government policies', because, apart from a government in complete denial about the reality of what is going on in the resources sector, the mining boom is over. I know that the Minister for Resources and Energy had a moment of honesty this morning which did not fully encapsulate what he meant to say. What he meant to say was that, under the Labor government, the mining boom is over. I heard him say as clear as a bell on the radio—I know that some of my colleagues over there wish he had not said it—that the mining boom is over.

This government are working hard towards that. They are doing everything they can to stop future investment. They talk eloquently about the investment pipeline being full, but I challenge the people on that side of the House to show me who is refilling the pipeline five years from now when the gas projects in Queensland are finished and when the construction phase is over for the investment that is already committed to, more than half of which was committed to under our government—for more than half of it, including Olympic Dam, the initial investments were made when the Howard government was in power. When that construction phase is over, where are the next projects? So bad is the situation that the Minister for Resources and Energy attacked the unions—he attacked his own. In order to divert attention away from the government's policies, he attacked the unions about the fact that there were not going to be projects in five years time if things kept going the way they were.

It is not the unions' fault solely. The fault lies here with the constant attack on the resources sector which comes from those on the government benches and which is turning investment away from Australia. They may skite about the current investment pipeline and about investments that were set up when I was the minister for resources, but the reality is that when those projects finish there is nothing. There is a black hole, because we have a Treasurer who spends his time attacking the resources sector and the people in it. We have a Premier in South Australia who wants to blame mining companies like BHP when they do not make the decisions that he wants. We have an attitude in the Labor Party that the mining industry is simply there to be taxed and when you are not taxing it you talk about taxing it more.

I heard the member for Isaacs say that these investment decisions over the last five years have been made in the full knowledge of a carbon price. Maybe he was not here when the then Prime Minister, the member for Griffith—with the encouragement of the current Prime Minister—abandoned carbon pricing. Maybe he was not here when the current Prime Minister stood up on television days before the election and said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' and the Treasurer said the same thing. Maybe he was not here, but let me assure him that it did happen. There is actual proof of it. May I assure the member for Isaacs that, when companies are making decisions about billions and tens of billions of dollars, they need consistency, and there has not been one moment of consistency from those who sit on the other side. One minute we are going to have a carbon price; the next minute we are not. One minute we are not going to have a carbon tax; the next minute we are. One minute we are going to have an RSPT. Remember the RSPT, the resource super profits tax, that disaster? Again it was under the stewardship of the existing Treasurer, who took a huge chunk out of the confidence of the resource industry by announcing a tax that they knew nothing about and then spent the next four months not only knifing his own Prime Minister in the back but also trying to find an easy way out. He went from an RSPT to an MRRT. We have gone from a situation where we were going to have a carbon price to one where we were not going to have a carbon price. We were not going to have a carbon tax; now we are going to have a carbon tax. There is no consistency.

The only thing that is consistent from those who sit on the other side is their attacks on the mining industry. We have seen an attitude from this government that every time they are short of money they put their hand in the pockets of the one sector that is underpinning Australia's economy at the moment. The reality is that, when you talk to the financial brokers, the financiers and the stock exchanges overseas, they look at Australia and they say, 'What the hell is the government trying to do?

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

Calm down, Amanda.

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