Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The biggest cause of uncertainty in Western Australia is the confused statements made by Mr Shorten. Mr Shorten went to Western Australia and said, 'Well, we don't really like the mining tax. We want to sit down with the resources sector in Western Australia. We understand that we've erred and we want to do better in the future.' He then comes to Canberra and votes to keep it. He goes into Western Australia and says, 'We think the mining tax is bad,' and then comes to Canberra and votes to keep it. The mining tax is a dog's breakfast of a tax. You have got to be a particular genius to come up with a tax which ties up an important industry in massive red tape, does not raise any meaningful revenue and is costly to administer, when the government has already spent all the money they thought it would raise and more! How many tax packages do you think you can get rid of which actually leave the budget better off? That is the situation that we find ourselves in with this ridiculous and job-destroying tax from the Labor Party.