Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to continue my remarks against the Mineral Resource Rent Tax Repeal and Other Measures Bill 2013 which I began last night. As I mentioned last night, the Senate has already rejected this bill once. But because the coal lobby continues to call the shots in this place, here we are again. It continues to boggle my mind that we have a government that claims that we are in a budget crisis and yet is axing what, if fixed, could be a revenue raising measure. Only this government would bring down the harshest and most unfair budget in living memory and simultaneously give a tax break to the big mining companies.

Last night the Greens moved a second reading amendment to this bill to highlight one of the worst inequities of the planned abolition of the mining tax—that is, the abolition of the low-income super contribution, which, as I spelt out last night, would affect one in three Australian workers, one in two women and 80 per cent of women who work on a part-time or casual basis. We know that this government cares nought for the needs of the vulnerable. But why are they hiding the abolition of this low-income super contribution in the mining tax bill? Let us bring it out into the open. Let us have a debate on whether we think it is okay as a parliamentary chamber to make it harder for women to retire with financial security.

I also challenge this government to justify how they can give a tax break to the world's largest companies after they have delivered—or seek to deliver—the cruellest budget that is hurting ordinary Australians. Why would this government go down such a wrong headed path? Is it just ideology? Well, perhaps. But I actually think it is more stark than that. The priorities of this government are exemplified and summed up in an exchange that was leaked to the media concerning another cave-in to mining companies. When the federal government was earlier considering scrapping the multi-billion dollar diesel tax rebate paid to mining companies, a senior Liberal was reported to have said that it was never really on the agenda because, 'Gina and Twiggy would have been coming after us.' A more apt reminder of who calls the shots could not be wished for.