House debates

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

Bills

Minerals Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013; Consideration in Detail

6:42 pm

Photo of Craig KellyCraig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always very interesting to follow the member for Kingston. I am sure if anyone was listening to the member for Kingston's contribution, they may be confused to think that the mining industry actually pays no tax and that these big evil multinational companies are coming in and stealing these mineral resources, which rightly do belong to all people of Australia, out of the ground and not making any contribution to the nation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We know that our mining companies pay substantial royalties to our state governments. Not only that, we know when you compare the term of the Howard government to the years of the Labor government, then those royalties that the state governments have enjoyed have more than doubled. And we also know it is the same with company tax. That is right: people listening to members of the Labor Party may have forgotten that the mining companies actually pay company tax on the profits that they make. And those profits we have seen more than double since the years of the Howard government compared to the last years of the Labor government.

But it is not only the royalties, it is not only the company tax, it is also the payroll of these companies. The payroll of the mining companies in the last year was close to $30 billion. They paid the Australian economy $30 billion worth of wages. Of course, all those wages go in and the people who earn those wages pay income tax. The average full-time wage of the 249,000 people that the mining sector employee is $125,000, which of course creates enormous economic activity throughout the entire economy and especially in our regional areas. The mining sector is also the largest employer of our Indigenous sector. There are more Indigenous people employed in the mining sector than in any other sector throughout the economy.

Our nation is getting enormous benefit from the mining sector, and that is why this tax is such a risk. It is a risk because it makes our tax regime internationally uncompetitive. Australia is not the only nation that has the benefit of coal and iron ore in the ground. Of all the world's coal resources, Australia holds but seven per cent; 93 per cent of the world's coal resources are held outside Australia. If we are going to compete for the capital investment from the mining sector we must have an internationally competitive tax regime. That is something that, unfortunately, the Labor Party fails to understand. The prosperity and wealth the we enjoy from the mining sector is at risk from this ill-designed tax.

The other concern is all the promises that the previous Labor government made—and they now continue to make in opposition. Basically they want to become the Santa Claus party of giving things away. It is very easy to promise things—to promise the schoolkids bonus, to promise things to small business, to promise things to all different sectors of our economy—but you have to be able to work out how you are going to pay for it. That is something that the opposition seems completely oblivious to.

I would like members of the opposition when they go out to their schools in their coming presentations to walk into those schools and apologise—to stand up, look those little kids in the eye and apologise to them and say: 'Because of our incompetence over the last six years, running the five largest budget deficits in our nation's history, you kids are going to have to pay the interest on our debt. Somehow you have to pay it back and every single year the interest repayments alone will be $10 billion.' In each electorate around the nation, that is $200 million— (Time expired)

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