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

Thank you very much. To assist the shadow minister, I should have said that I was quoting from the GST distribution review report. Let us go through the chronology so that it is very clear to everybody where this information is available. On 2 May 2010, the Henry review recommended a resource rent tax and the resource superprofits tax was announced. On 2 July 2010, I, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Resources and Energy entered a heads of agreement with some of Australia's biggest miners about a profits based tax. Then a policy transition group was led by Mr Don Argus—well-known in the resources sector—and Minister Ferguson. That was announced on 2 July. The membership and the terms of reference were announced on 3 August. It did its work and the report was received on 22 December 2010. On 24 March 2011, the government announced it would accept all 98 recommendations of the group. The government then formed the resource tax implementation group to work on legislative drafting. Then of course we in this parliament dealt with the legislation. The legislation was passed on 19 March 2012 and assented to on 29 March 2012. Issues involving state royalties were referred to the GST distribution group and its report was released on 30 November 2012. So it was available to anyone who wanted to study the issue and be fully apprised of the issues from 30 November 2012. So all of that work has been done, all of that work is available and all of that work is capable of being absorbed by anybody who wants to sit at a desk, read documents, think deeply and consider the nation's future.

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