Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What would be the effect on debt, deficit and growth from the abolition of the mining tax? How will it build a stronger economy, particularly for the families and businesses in my electorate of Swan?

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

I thank the member for Swan for his question. More than 4,000 of his constituents work in the mining industry, and that is hugely important to his electorate. A vast number of others would be working in associated industries for the mining industry. Mining is hugely important for Australia. It represents more than 10 per cent of our economy and more than 55 per cent of all merchandise exports from Australia.

When the Labor Party introduced the mining tax all those years ago—the original mining tax, because there were five versions in fewer than five years—it was meant to raise nearly $50 billion. So far, we think it might have raised $400 million. But I am being generous; the numbers have not come in. So far, it has been an absolute disaster on every front. The problem was that Labor spent all the money they had never collected. They spent all that money, handing it out here, handing it out there. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition was one of the great heroes of the mining tax, which he described as:

This is big economic reform which will share the benefits of the mining boom with all Australians on all incomes.

That is a bit like the fishes and the loaves. Here is this $400 million tax. It is going to go to everyone. Everyone is going to win out of it. But to be fair—I do not want to be unfair to the Leader of the Opposition—it was the member for Lilley who came up with the mining tax. He was right when he said:

If we don't have revenue from the tax, then we can't make the investments.

That was Wayne Swan, ABC Radio, Perth, 2011. Absolutely right. If there is no money from the tax, then you cannot keep spending against it. But Labor did. Labor committed $16.7 billion of expenditure against the tax that hardly raises any money—hardly raises any money. That is irresponsible, and it is irresponsible for the Labor Party to oppose us now. I want to quote the member for Lilley again, because he is very quotable. He said in this place—and you have to get a load of the beginning of it—in 2008:

We have built a $22 billion surplus to fight inflation, put downward pressure on interest rates. The opposition through their irresponsible actions up in the Senate are trying to punch a huge hole in that surplus.

I say to the member for Lilley: speak to the front bench here and explain to them that if they really do care about the budget and if they really do care about reducing the huge legacy of debt that they have left the Australian people, then they will immediately support the repeal of the flawed mining tax.