Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are from Queensland, Senator Boyce, so is Mr Palmer writing your speeches too?

All of a sudden we see that we have Senator—none other than—Barnaby Joyce, coming to the defence of Ms Rinehart, writing letters to her daughter—I do not know if he has ever met her—telling her virtually that it is a bit unfair and to back off. I do not know; Senator Joyce should table the letter and defend himself. What the hell is a Senator from Queensland doing interfering in a family dispute?

Then they all started. Then there was a Mr Shultz, I believe, so Ms Rinehart is calling in her favours. But that is what happens when you take donations from mining companies. You are beholden to them, and you are too scared to stand up and go, 'Hang on, it's a $75 million profit before you get taxed,' so I did start feeling sorry for you. But now I do not, because the old saying is that you reap what you sow. You lot are now saying, 'That's it,' and you are reaping it.

Going back to the mining tax, I challenge anyone on that side to get up and show us—show us, do not make stupid, glib statements through Mr Abbott and his office—and when you are on song as a team, which I do not think has happened since about 2007, tell us where these jobs are going to go. Tell us! Come here and tell me—challenge me out there, and challenge me in any Western Australian mining community about where these jobs are going to go and why they are going to go.

This comes from the party of 'profit is good'. And I support profit—let me tell you: I love profit. Do you know why I love profit, Madam Acting Deputy President? Because when companies make profit they employ people, and when people are employed they spend money, and they spend money with small businesses, they spend money in hospitality, they spend money in tourism and it is a wonderful thing. I wish they would spend more in the great state of Western Australia. I really do. But, come on, here is the challenge: drag me out there, get the media and pull me up. Bring a miner in here, challenge me, bash me and around the ears and tell me one mine that is going to put off workers because all of a sudden they have cracked a $75 million profit and they are paying a little bit of tax. Rio Tinto, BHP and Xstrata are the major employers in the mining industry—and I am not for one minute even alluding to belittling or downgrading the importance of the small miners—but, with the greatest of respect, what the heck is a small miner?

This is the trickiness of the Liberal Party. They use this terminology, 'the small miner'. They try to incorporate the small miner along the same lines as a small business person or a small family operation. Let me tell you, about small family operations. Coming from the trucking industry, no-one knows the pain that small businesses suffer more than me, because I was a small businessman too at one stage. But, do you know what?

Senator Boyce interjecting—

I worked it out for you, Senator Boyce, and for you Madam Acting Deputy President. Do you know how to make a small fortune out of transport? You start with a large one. Let me tell you, I know that very well.

So just check the terminology. Stop standing up for the billionaires club and start standing up for Australian families, for Australian workers and for Australian small businesses. Start standing up for the real communities. I have to tell you, through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, to get off your backsides and get out into some of those north-west towns and have a look at the lack of infrastructure. The miners are very good at one thing: they are very good at taking up and digging out nonrenewable resources. There is no argument about that. But the days when the miner built the hall, the swimming pool, the football club and the netball club—guess what on that side—are long gone. They do not have to do it anymore. Talk to the shire councillors and see how they are suffering because they do not get the money coming in through ratepayers for the land. Thank you.