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

I do thank that shadow Treasurer for his question, because I did answer that comprehensively yesterday. It is the case that they are a deductible credit—no doubt about that. That was contained in the report which was produced by the Minister for Resources and Energy, Mr Ferguson, and Mr Argus, along with some advice that we should sit down with the states and work our way through all of these issues, which is precisely what we are doing as we speak. Our treasuries are engaged in this discussion, and they are engaged in this discussion for a very good reason: we want our resources industries to grow and prosper. The whole argument for a resource rent tax is that it is the most efficient way of generating growth and jobs in industry, as opposed to the regressive impact of royalties and how they punish projects, particularly those which have higher costs.

What you have seen in the state of Queensland has been jacking up of royalties, which has cost jobs. We have not heard one peep from them about the job-destroying impact of what has gone on in Queensland from the royalty increases by the Queensland government. We are determined to work through with the states the intersection of a resource rent tax with royalties. That is what we have said we are doing, we have been doing it and we will continue to do it because it goes to the health of our industry which has been growing dramatically since we announced the introduction of the MRRT in 2010. I went through some of the figures yesterday.

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