Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right, Senator Abetz: guess who. We are talking about increasing the taxation on resources that are owned by this country. On 25 February this year in a parliament on the other side of the country—in fact Senator Johnston’s parliament—there was a question asked in relation to what discussions had been underway in relation to royalties. In relation to the royalties increase, guess who said this:

The mining companies are aware of it, and some of them have expressed their views. I have to say that a few people who work around the mining industry came to me over summer and said,—

and I am going to have to give it away now—

“By the way, Colin, the mining companies are getting away with murder, they’re not paying enough.” A number of people working in the mining industry have said that to me.

As I said I did give it away—it was the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Mr Colin Barnett. That was what Mr Barnett said. Let me just tell you what the independent assessment of the government’s resource rent tax by KPMG said. This is what they have published and you can see it if you wish to, Senator Abetz. They said:

Introducing the new tax modelled as a resource rent tax has zero economic costs. Further, effectively abolishing the crude oil excise and state royalties leads to an economic gain because it encourages activity in the mining sector. Further, the cut in the company tax rate stimulates investment across the whole economy also relating to economic gain.

They further went on:

It will increase GDP by 0.7 per cent and increase employment in those industries.

You have the courage, Senator Abetz, when the budget comes in to the Senate, to vote against it, because we have made it very clear that three things are going to be attached to that resource rent tax. The first is infrastructure, the second is relief to small companies and the third is in relation to increasing the superannuation contributions. Do you have the courage to vote against that?

As my comrade Senator Moore said, you have been very optimistic about these things. You go and tell people in the budget that there was $4.2 billion put forward for road projects over 2010-11. Let me just go through a few of them. There is the Hunter Expressway, New South Wales; the Kempsey bypass, New South Wales; and the Sapphire to Woolgoolga project, New South Wales. In Queensland there is the Cardwell Range realignment. In Victoria there is the Kings Road interchange and the duplication from Waurn Ponds to Winchelsea. In Western Australia there are four projects and there is one in South Australia. Of that money, the government is going to put forward $59.5 million to eliminate 320 road black spots over the next year.

Then we can go on to a number of other things, particularly the magnificent investment that is going to occur in rail over the next few years to fix up 10,000 kilometres of track and to make sure that there are a further 235 kilometres constructed and that 3,771 kilometres will be upgraded. That is what you have to risk when you vote against it. (Time expired)