Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on this motion to take note of answers. It is exceedingly clear that Senator Sinodinos has continued on that well-worn path that the opposition has beaten, so to speak, in trying to create more fear, more uncertainty and more lack of confidence among Australians and Australian business leaders, in small business or otherwise. Basically, every day that we hear a contribution from the other side, it is aimed at negativity. Despite the fact that we have piloted our nation through the GFC in the best state of almost any developed economy, with 800,000 new jobs and continued record investment—I think Senator Evans said almost $260 billion in the pipeline—there is an absolutely relentless campaign of negativity, whether it be on the carbon emissions or on the budget black hole. We have a Charter of Budget Honesty; that is repeated every question time. We have a lower tax-to-GDP ratio than the Howard government; that is also repeated. All of that is ignored in this incessant campaign to destroy confidence in the Australian economy for their political ends. The short-term short-sightedness of their continual negative attacks is absolutely amazing. For their political ends, they are prepared to jeopardise future investment in mining and consideration of future jobs that are to be created. They are prepared to put all that out the window by driving down confidence in our economy.

We all know that Australians have changed. They have become more conservative as a result of the GFC. We know that people are putting more money into their bank each week and paying down their credit card debt, and the conservatives are capitalising on that lack of adventure in the Australian economy, which is so evident in the retail sector, where people are not spending as they did in the past. So they know that, if they are able to chance their arm, there is a climate of uncertainty there which they can exploit, and they are doing it absolutely relentlessly.

Despite the fact that there is tremendous confidence in the mining sector and a record investment pipeline—albeit prices have come off in iron ore from the high of $180 down to $86, with tremendous fluctuation in the price of raw materials putting pressure on companies who have higher leverage and higher capital costs of production—they continue to relentlessly drive home what they see as a climate of fear and uncertainty where the voters will turn around and blame the Labor government, the government which steered them through the financial crisis, supported employment and has facilitated with all of its efforts an expansion and an era where this great nation could have the mining boom it deserves and equally distribute some of those profits back to its population. No criticism at all did we hear of Campbell Newman taking the axe there and increasing royalties—which, as was quite rightly pointed out today, apply on both the upside and the downside. The minerals resource rent tax applies on superprofits. It is after companies have been able to take their tax gain for the capital expenditure that they have appropriately invested. But royalties are there whether it is up or down. When prices go down they still pay royalties, and when prices go up they pay royalties.

So I think they should be a little bit more even-handed. They should at least be owning up and being honest about the effect of some of the state royalty increases, not simply swinging away at the federal government with all of their might, trying to bring the tree down, taking the axe to confidence and continued job creation, and trying to create the climate of fear and uncertainty which they think will bring them electoral success. What a way to achieve government: by running down this great country, its great workforces and its great small businesses, and opposing almost every positive initiative that the Labor government seeks to bring to further this great national economy.