Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

No, they are at Everton Park.

… 'Wayne, at a time when we are in the middle of a massive mining boom, why aren't people like me sharing more in its benefits?'

That is a good question. Now we have a mining boom that the Treasurer is so concerned to redistribute, good old Daniel from Everton Park can expect $5.50. Maybe the Treasurer will give him $6 and hope that he can buy himself an ice-cream with the change. But the bottom line is that out of all of this, Labor is now walking away from an agreement with the miners—an agreement that was pretty unambiguous when it was originally stated; it was clear—that all state and territory royalties will be creditable against the resources tax liability, but not transferable or refundable.

That was signed by the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the minister for resources, Martin Ferguson—who has been very quiet this week—Marius Kloppers from BHP, David Peever from Rio Tinto and Peter Freyberg from Xstrata Coal. By her hand, the Prime Minister said—and it was confirmed by Don Argus in the implementation committee—that all the royalties paid to the states would be rebateable. In fact, the government went further:

Any royalties paid and not claimed as a credit will be carried forward at the uplift rate of [the] long-term bond rate plus seven per cent.

How good is that return? The member for Wentworth would be able to work that out pretty quickly.

The government is not just in a position where it says, 'Don't worry guys, you don't have to pay net any royalties to the state, we'll rebate you', it is also saying, 'But if you do not pay enough mining tax to us, we, the taxpayers, owe you a credit on your royalties at the long-term bond rate plus seven per cent'. That is a fantastic return. I can see every self-funded retiree in the gallery say, 'I want a bit of that government-guaranteed return', which the government negotiated. I thought to myself that is quite a deal that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer did at that time. Even on reflection I thought this was a very generous deal with the miners. And then I saw Gary Gray today—we like Gary because he is very honest and he is very straight—and the minister said on Radio National:

I think it's worth having in mind there were circumstances surrounding the design of the mining tax that meant the government had to do the best job it could do in the circumstances available to it.

So the Prime Minister negotiated this deal after she had dumped Kevin Rudd, and she signed any deal to stop the mining companies from continuing their advertising campaign. I seem to recollect the words 'put down your guns'; that is what the Prime Minister said. She went and did a deal and had all of these expenditure items against that resource that she claimed was coming in to redistribute the benefits of the boom, but the problem is the $14 billion of expenditure are now funded by debt. They are funded by debt, by borrowed money, because the government got it wrong. They have had five versions—distinct versions—of the mining tax, including the resource super profits tax, and the minerals resource rent tax, which the three ministers personally negotiated. In fact, they deliberately excluded the Treasury from being involved in the negotiations, so there were no departmental people. They went into a personal negotiation with three formidable negotiators—Marius Kloppers, David Peever and Peter Freyberg—who negotiate contracts with the Chinese all day long. And guess who won? What a surprise! Like Muriel's Wedding'What a surprise to see you here!' And then it changed again with a policy transition group, then it changed again with a deal with the Independents and the Greens, and then it changed again with the Greens in the Senate.

The government, with all of its resources and all of its words, said, 'Don't worry, we are going to spend this money, because this revenue is coming in', and they made all these heroic promises: company tax cuts, increases to superannuation, payments to low-income people—and gee they are hypocrites in that regard, aren't they? It was Labor in 2009 who cut the support for low-income people on superannuation by $3.3 billion, and they come into this place and give us a lecture about low-income Australians. Fair dinkum—that is pretty rich!

They had other things in relation to interest withholding tax, small business instant asset write-offs, and a range of regional infrastructure funds, schoolkids bonus, payments going out to everyone. Guess what? In an election year they get it. And guess what? It is all funded by borrowed money.

So they are borrowing from your children to give money today to those parents as a handout. But it has got nothing at all to do with education—even by their own admission.

On more than 100 occasions my colleague Matthias Cormann in the Senate has been calling on individual ministers and bureaucrats to release the full assumptions that lie behind the claims on the revenue of the mining tax. My colleague here, the shadow minister for resources, has done an outstanding job of asking questions of the government in this regard: 'Give us the facts behind your claims of this river of money on the mining tax.' But what happens? The government does everything it can to block the path, to prevent the truth from coming in—the 'sunlight', as the member for Lyne described it—on this tax and so many others. It was like extracting teeth to get the Treasurer to release the number last week. For crying out loud, on Thursday it was 'illegal' to release the revenue on the mining tax and then he released it on Friday after he heard about our private member's bill to force him to release that information! And over the last two days we have had a conga line of incompetence from the government, waxing and waning about whether they are going to adjust the royalties or whether they are going to respond to the Greens and the member for Lyne, who say the royalty rebate should be changed to increase the total revenue for the mining tax.

This uncertainty and confusion on the mining tax is on top of the disastrous confusion and uncertainty the government has rolled out into this place on superannuation over the last week—the Prime Minister, on the floor of the parliament, changed her policy in relation to people taking their superannuation out over 60 and what tax levels they would pay—and it is on top of the confusion and chaos that the government has gone through in relation to its over 500 promises to deliver a surplus this year. I do not recall any of those promises for a surplus—366 from the Treasurer and 166 from the Prime Minister—talking about conditionality and where the world might go. No, it was emphatic: it was the basis of their own economic credibility by their own word.

We had Senator Evans saying last night on Q&A in relation to the mining tax: 'It's a problem. It's got to be fixed in my view.' And he went on to talk about how he was going to change it. We had the Special Minister of State say today he does not want it redrawn. We had the Prime Minister yesterday saying they want to change royalties. We had the Prime Minister today talking about Don Argus wanting to change royalties. We had the Treasurer today not wanting to declare a position because, if in fact he did declare a position, the truth would be out: the mining tax is a shambles; Labor's rhetoric is overblown. This will be the new benchmark for incompetence. Only Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard could design a tax that does not raise any money and leaves every Australian in debt.

See this speech in context