Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is directed to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the plight of Wallis Drilling, a company that operates 40 drill rigs and employs about 225 people. Since the announcement of the Prime Minister’s great big new tax on mining, Wallis Drilling has cancelled orders for two new drilling rigs worth about $5 million in business to other firms and has also suspended plans for a $1.5 million extension to its workshop. This means less work for engineers, boilermakers, painters, mechanics, builders, carpenters and plumbers. When will he stop pretending that his new tax is somehow good for the mining industry and listen to the concerns of real people like those at Wallis Drilling and dump his job-destroying tax?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the National Party for his question. In response to his question I refer him in part to the answer I gave to an earlier question from the member for Bradfield, and that goes to the aggregate impact of the overall tax reform package which the government has put forward and its impact on growth, employment and investment in the mining industry. In fact, it is projected that investment in the mining industry will increase by between 4.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent as a result of the reform, and that employment within the mining industry will increase by seven per cent as a result of the reform being brought in by the government. And that is because we are bringing in a profits based tax as opposed to one which is based on production.

The Leader of the National Party talks about the impact of this tax reform proposal on the industry more broadly. I also note in passing, as in fact did the Treasurer in answering a question, that if you look at the National Party’s constituency—and they had their conference over the weekend—it is pretty interesting to know where they actually stand on the question of the National Broadband Network. What is the Leader of the National Party, claiming to represent the interests of all those regions out there, actually saying about their desire to have decent, reliable, cheap, broadband services?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order going to relevance. The question was about a great big new tax on mining. It had nothing to do with the National Broadband Network. How could this answer now possibly be relevant to the question?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I will listen carefully to the Prime Minister. He understands that he has to be relevant. The Prime Minister has the call.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As those opposite would be aware, we in the House are pleased today to be welcoming the Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China. Earlier today with him I witnessed the signing of a number of agreements. The nature and content of some of these agreements are quite interesting. One is a facility agreement—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I know this might be difficult for those opposite to listen to but it does go directly to the question which has been asked by the Leader of the National Party, which is: what is the impact of tax reform on overall perceptions of confidence in the mining industry? Today, together with the Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China, we witnessed the signing of a facility agreement for $US1.2 billion between Karara Mining Ltd and the China Development Bank Corporation. Furthermore, we also saw a cooperation agreement between Resourcehouse Ltd, Export-Import Bank of China, the Metallurgical Corporation of China and China Power Holdings to establish a $US8 billion China First Coal Development project involving the construction of a mine and a 476-kilometre railway to the port of Abbot Point near Bowen. That is what was signed in our presence earlier today. Perhaps there is a third one which I should draw our attention to as well, and that is an engineering and procurement contract cooperation agreement for China Gezhouba Group Company Ltd to provide procurement engineering and design services to Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. At current estimates the expansion, I am advised, would add up to $A5 billion of annual export revenue to Australia.

Here are three sets of agreements which have been signed in my presence and the presence of the Chinese Vice-President about one-and-a-half hours ago. I know that those opposite have difficulty in confronting the facts in this debate; they would much rather run a fear campaign. This government is interested in tax reform because it delivers better super for working families—7.5 million of them; better tax arrangements for our 2.4 million small businesses right across the country; tax cuts for some three-quarters of a million incorporated Australian businesses; and a dedicated infrastructure fund for our resource states, Queensland, WA and elsewhere, to build the road, rail and ports that they desperately cry out for for the future. So I say to the Leader of the National Party—apart from the fact he is not interested in representing in this chamber his constituency’s interest in the National Broadband Network—that on the question of the impact of our tax reform proposal he should look very carefully at the facts and the content of what is occurring out there in the community, and if his overall argument is that there is no confidence on the part of international investors in the impact of the government’s tax reform proposal, I would ask him to look very carefully at the three sets of agreements which were signed in my presence and the presence of the Chinese Vice-President today.