Senate debates

Monday, 19 March 2012

Bills

Minerals Resource Rent Tax Bill 2011, Minerals Resource Rent Tax (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2011, Minerals Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — General) Bill 2011, Minerals Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — Customs) Bill 2011, Minerals Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — Excise) Bill 2011, Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Amendment Bill 2011, Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — General) Bill 2011, Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — Customs) Bill 2011, Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (Imposition — Excise) Bill 2011, Tax Laws Amendment (Stronger, Fairer, Simpler and Other Measures) Bill 2011, Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Amendment Bill 2011; Second Reading

11:07 am

Photo of Sue BoyceSue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

After that contribution from Senator Sterle we cannot claim that the government is not singing from the same song sheet. They are singing the song of the politics of envy nonstop. That was perhaps one of the most malicious and revolting contributions I think I have heard in this chamber. In case Senator Sterle was not aware, most large businesses started out as small businesses. Let us look at the transport industry and Lindsay Fox's business and Sir Peter Abeles' business. They were people who started out and used their own intelligence and their own sheer hard physical labour to create something big and worthwhile and profitable. And guess what? They used those profits to pay wages and to build their companies—to invest in more products, more technology and more research. That is what small businesses do in this country, but they certainly will not be able to under this disgusting government.

I was rather hoping that after the fracas, the latest little effort of Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd, had settled down and we finally worked out who the Prime Minister was it would mean the government would get on with government. But it has not. The same song of mismanagement and envy just goes on and on. Today I have been reviewing the report done by the Senate Economics Committee on the minerals resource rent tax and two other reports that are going to come down today—one on the personally controlled e-health records and one on the MySuper legislation. With each of them, you do not have to read our dissenting reports to realise how poorly managed they are, what a mishmash there is with the lack of negotiation and 'Oops, we got that wrong; we'd better change that.' A litany of mistakes applies to every one of these reports. You can read the government report. The only thing that is missing at the end of every one of the government's reports—with this long litany of a lack of consultation, a lack of understanding, poor timing and poor leadership—is 'and so we need to fix it'. This government limps along trying to put bandaids on whenever they discover 'Oh goodness, we can't even try to pretend that we'll put that through!'

These bills relating to the minerals resource rent tax are a classic example of what this government do not know about business and will never know about business—and one hopes they will be out of government before they destroy any opportunities there are for business. Let us look, for example, at Senator Sterle's laughable comment that 'there aren't small miners'. Just because you have six zeros on the company balance sheet does not mean you are big; it means that you are in an industry that requires very deep and long-term investment to make a profit. And that is what the people in the mining industry in Australia have done over centuries. We are very lucky in Australia. This government is extraordinarily lucky that the mining industry and the profits from the mining industry are currently masking their extraordinary ineptitude. It beggars belief that this government cannot even recognise that what they are doing is destroying their own golden goose. The only thing that will keep them in government is good profits from the mining industry—because they are just useless at anything else.

Let us look, for example, at the profit mark of $75 million. I first made these comments in relation to the BAS. We have this wonderful view that, if someone makes a $1 billion profit, we have to get in there and rip it from them. A $1 billion profit can be a huge profit or it can be quite a small profit. We should not be talking about the profit, we should be talking about the return on investment. If you have invested $1 billion and made $1 million you have not really done very well, it is not a large return on investment. To have set an actual figure of $75 million is the most bizarre, fiscally irresponsible and completely ignorant way to approach this legislation. Why $75 million? As Senator Sterle said, if is $74.9 million you are all right. It will not matter whether you have invested $150 million or $10 billion to make that $75 million, you will still pay the tax. How bizarre, how comple­tely outside any reality, any assessment.

One of the biggest issues, of course, is that mining expenditure is the cost a miner incurs in bringing the taxable resources to the valuation point—and the government still has not quite worked out how they are going to deal with the market issues they have developed there. In my own state of Queensland we are very lucky to have a strong flow of royalties from the mining industry—not just coal but particularly in the coal area with the Surat and Bowen basins. Nine per cent of Queensland government revenue currently comes from state royalties. But this is the boom, this is as good as it gets with getting money out of the mining industry. Everyone assumes that it will steady and then, over the next 50 or 60 years, begin to taper. Queensland is getting its cut, particularly out of the coal industry and many other industries, and they get nine per cent in royalties. So, Senator Sterle, while we are looking at how well Labor governments perform, you might want to ask: is the Queensland government in surplus? No, they are not in surplus. Have they had a downgrade of their credit rating in the last three years?

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