Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Today we are debating a matter of public importance, put up by the Greens political party, which in effect says: tax the mining industry, tax them again and again, and with those taxes we will be able to fix the roads, housing and natural habitat that have been lost. That is, in effect, the matter that we are debating today.

I acknowledge that some of our cities are finding difficulties with traffic congestion and some loss of habitat. But if you look at Melbourne, under a Liberal-National state government, you will see these magnificent freeways and ring-roads through the city that really have addressed some of Labor's mismanagement of our cities. If you look at the capital of my home state, Brisbane, you will see that it had a Liberal and then LNP city council under Campbell Newman that built tunnels, that really addressed the issues of traffic congestion and housing affordability and that was renowned for the work that it did on the protection of natural habitat in that state. Contrast that with Sydney, under years of Labor rule and a Labor government that was only interested in giving mining leases to the friends of the mining minister or playing games with the unions that control the Australian Labor Party, and you have a good contrast of Labor administration in the cities. Look at Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and at the Liberal-National governments. Mr O'Farrell is now starting the long task of fixing up Sydney's traffic congestion and housing difficulties. But it will take a long time.

The Greens think that you can tax your way to prosperity. Little do they recognise or acknowledge that, in 2010-11 alone, the mining industry contributed in royalty revenue some $9.5 billion. That is in addition to the so-called superprofits tax—that is, company tax that mining companies pay when they make any sort of profit—and it is also in addition to all the payroll taxes that go to state governments.

So the mining industry in Australia has, until recently, contributed to its way. Regrettably, with the combination of the Labor Party and the Greens, investment in the so-called goose that lays the golden egg is starting to falter because you have these crazy left-wing policies of the Labor-Greens alliance of wanting to tax mining out of our nation.

The Greens in their 'best of 2012' press release, issued towards the end of last year, were actually claiming credit for the best broken promise. They are claiming the benefit of dropping the surplus fetish. The Greens do not understand that, for Australia to be strong and for Australia to have the money to invest in and build the sort of infrastructure they are bleating about and that we need such as dams and water storages throughout Australia, you need to run a tight financial ship.

I note that the Greens and Labor talk about major public transport options. They never seem to remember that the last major railway built in Australia was the Alice to Darwin railway. Built by which government? The John Howard government built that magnificent piece of Australian infrastructure. Why were we able to do it? Because the country was successful. There was investment coming into the country and we were able to afford those sorts of things.

Have a look at Western Australia, an exemplar state after three years of a Liberal-National Party government, where the economy is now booming. Why? Because investment has been encouraged. People know that that is a state where they can make profits and, out of the profits, they pay money in one form or another to the state and federal governments. You only have to look at the magnificent job that is happening in Western Australia, with all of the new proposals for public transport and better traffic flow. I would have to say with some pride for my fellow Australians in Western Australia that they understand that you do not fix Australia by taxing the goose that lays the golden egg. The people of Western Australia clearly recognised that last Saturday, when they not only overwhelmingly turned to the Liberal and National parties and destroyed and decimated the Australian Labor Party but at last count—as I read it—completely decimated the Greens political party. That is a forerunner of what will happen with a policy-free group—they are certainly not policy-free; I take that back when I refer to the Greens. That will happen to a group who have these pie in the sky, airy-fairy, 'fairies at the bottom of the garden' sort of policies that read well if you get a grade 4 kid to write out a wish list of what they would want for Australia but are without any understanding of what it requires to run a complex business like the Australian nation. Unfortunately, the Greens have these thought bubbles about how they would like to see Australia, but their actions do anything but give Australia the wherewithal it needs to be strong and to provide the sort of infrastructure that the Greens are talking about.

You only have to look at history and see that the only true parties of the environment in the Australian parliament over decades have been the Liberal and National parties. Go through any measure of the environment—the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Kakadu, natural resource management—