Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Just when you thought the government could not come up with another bad idea, here comes another one, wham! It is unbelievable—bad idea, after bad idea. It is just extraordinary to watch how many stupid ideas this government can actually come up with. This one is an absolute ripper. What have we got here? They say, ‘Higher taxes are going to lead to investment.’ Ooh! That is something a rocket scientist must have thought up—higher taxes are going to lead to investment. Isn’t that extraordinary? Everywhere else around the world, they seem to be saying, ‘It’s actually lower taxes that lead to investment.’ Maybe the Prime Minister read the advice a little wrong and he put ‘higher’ in when he should have put ‘lower’. This is one of the most stupid ideas that a government has ever come up with. Guess why? If you threaten the viability of the mining industry, you threaten jobs. It is as simple as that. It does not matter how many complicated arguments you want to put around this, if you threaten the viability of the mining industry, you threaten jobs. We hear a lot of talk about Western Australia and Queensland in this debate, but so many of those jobs are in New South Wales and people in New South Wales are very worried about losing their jobs.

I went travelling right through the central west and western New South Wales—17 towns—a couple of weeks ago.