Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to speak today about the reports over the last few days suggesting that the fuel tax credits scheme should be scrapped, and I'd like to warn the government that it would be complete folly to even consider this process. I know the green propaganda betrays this as some sort of a subsidy to agriculture and mining. To put it simply, this is a rebate on the tax that is paid on your fuel and that goes towards road expenses. If you're driving a tractor on a farm or using an irrigation pump or some mining equipment in a mine or quarry, you are not using those roads. So to portray this as a subsidy, and I know the green movement and even Lock the Gate have got caught up in this when they talk about the subsidies to agriculture and mining—this is not a subsidy. This is a rebate back to a user of a tax to fund something that that particular user does not use. The agriculture and mining sector, I might remind the House, are the two sectors that have kept this country in the black over the last few years. They underpin our economy, they are run very efficiently right across the sectors and they do not want to be burdened with having to pay a tax on something they do not use.