George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard the members for McMahon, Lingiari and Adelaide talk about what they think is going to be taken away from people. I can tell you that the mining tax, combined with its toxic partner the carbon tax, took away something from many North Queenslanders and many Central Queenslanders. It took away something very fundamental to them. It took away their jobs. There have been over 8,000 job losses in the Queensland coal sector, according to the Queensland Resources Council. There were 37 job losses in Mackay announced by Thiess yesterday. There have been dozens of mine closures throughout the Bowen Basin. There has been a domino effect through the mining service sector in Mackay. We have had scores of job losses in our local town and it is hurting a lot of people.

If there is one thing you do not want to take away from someone, it is their job. That is what the last government did with its carbon tax and its mining tax. To fund their out-of-control addiction to spending and waste they found an ATM and the ATM was the mining industry. The mining industry was contributing about $20 billion a year to state and federal coffers back in 2010 but that was not enough. The original estimate, as has been said before, was that the mining tax would collect around $26.5 billion from 2012-13 to 2016-17. What did it actually collect? A few hundred million dollars. The forecast in PEFO was that it was down to $4.4 billion over that same period. I think the figure it has collected right now is $400 million. So it utterly failed. Despite the failure to raise revenue, the impact on the industry was huge.

I note the contribution by the member for Denison, which no doubt is supported by the member for Melbourne. These guys were saying, 'Let's just fix the tax so we get some more money.' You will fix the mining industry. You will fix towns like Mackay that rely on the mining industry. You will fix them good. You will close them and they will become ghost towns because the tax will be even worse.

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