Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I must say: if it is such a great problem in Western Australia, why couldn't Senator Smith even see his 20 minutes out? He could not even talk about the issue for 20 minutes without a series of handwritten notes—followed line by line, word by word—emanating from the minister's office, and the Prime Minister's office, running the coalition line. He could not even last 20 minutes to defend the abolition of the minerals resource rent tax.

Let me again make my position clear—and it has been clear and unequivocal for some time: the miners in this country must pay their fair share. We hear a lot from the coalition, when they are talking about their failed budget—their budget that was based on a series of lies—about how their budget is fair. The problem for the coalition is: nobody in the country believes that their budget is fair. They talk about 'lifters and leaners', as if, when you are on the pension, you are a leaner! If you are on the disability pension you are a leaner! If you are unfortunate enough to be unemployed, you are a leaner! And you are only a lifter if you are out there working! Well, maybe they should apply the 'lifters and leaners' analogy to the mining companies who are leaning on this country, who are not paying appropriate taxation in this country, and who are registered overseas in areas where they can manipulate their tax in various countries around the world, including in Australia.

The coalition talk about the age of entitlement being over. Well, it seems to me that the age of entitlement is over for pensioners, for students, for seniors, for disability support pensioners and for Newstart workers, and it is over for the poor and unemployed in this country. But it is not over for Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest, because they are entitled, under this proposal, to come in and continue to rip this country off by not paying an appropriate share of taxation to make sure that we can fund the schools, fund the roads, fund the health system, and fund the infrastructure in this country. How dare Senator Smith come in here and lecture the Labor Party, when the coalition is simply bowing down and conceding to the vested interests in this country—those vested interests being the big mining companies.

The coalition talk about doing cost-benefit analysis. Well, how about a bit of cost-benefit analysis of what it means to this society to hammer the pensioners, cut back on the health system, cut back on social security and cut back on the education system, while you let Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest, BHP and Rio Tinto and all those mining companies rip us off, day in and day out? How about a bit of cost-benefit analysis on that?

They talk about the cost to future generations when they are talking about their failed budget. Well, let me talk about the cost to future generations of not ensuring that BHP, Rio Tinto and the multibillionaire miners pay their fair share of tax. What it means is that Australians will not be able to get a pension until they are 70. That is the longest retirement period for any country in the world. Why? Because, according to this mob over here, according to the Prime Minister and his minions, you are a leaner if you now retire at 65 or 66; you have got to go to 70. And yet the mining companies can continue to rip us off, mercilessly, in terms of paying a fair share of tax in this country.

They talk about 'grown-up' policies. Well, what could be a more grown-up policy than ensuring that we have a decent society in this country—that we have a good society, and that it is not a society just for those on the banks of the Swan River living in their huge mansions who can fly Senator Joyce and other parliamentarians off to weddings in India simply because they can afford to do it? How about a bit of grown-up policy on ensuring that we get a fair share in this country?

They talk about economic responsibility. What an absolute joke! Surely the economic responsibility that any government has is to take advice from experts and understand that the mining industry is not paying its fair share and understand that, by ensuring that the mining industry pays its fair share of taxation, we can then look after future generations in this country. Surely these are the main issues.

You heard Senator Smith: it raises a paltry $400 million! Well, I know where I stand on this. Give the government that $400 million so we can look after health and education, and we can make sure kids can go to university if they are from working-class backgrounds. Surely these are the issues that are important for economic responsibility; not letting the miners use their tax havens around the world to deny us proper payment for our natural resources, the natural resources that are making these people multibillionaires are our resources.

When you read the BRW 500 rich list, who is No. 1? Gina Rinehart. Where did Gina Rinehart get her money from? She did not get her money from going out there and working hard. She did not get her money from getting a job or inventing something new. She did not get her money because she was some great entrepreneur. She got her money because her dad left her the money. She inherited this fortune. She inherited a fortune and then she has the cheek and the hide to tell Australian workers that, unless they take pay cuts, we will not be 'flexible' enough, we will not be 'competitive' enough, against overseas countries. In 2012 Gina Rinehart in a speech to the mining industry—she did not go there; it was too much of a problem to actually go to the thing; she posted a video of her speech on a website—at the Sydney Mining Club, she said that it was not 'business as usual', and that:

… Australians should not be complacent about the investment pipeline given that African labourers will work for less than $2 a day.

This is the richest individual in Australia, one of the richest people in the world, saying 'you cannot keep doing what you are doing, because Africans will work for two dollars a day'. She said:

Furthermore, Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future.

Then she rambles on about a special tax for the mining areas in the north of Western Australia. My challenge to Gina Rinehart is: go and talk personally to some of those South African miners that are forced to work for two dollars a day. There will be none of them saying, 'We love working for two dollars a day.' Those workers are being exploited. Those workers are in some of the poorest conditions in the world. That is why you see the problems in the South African mining industry, because workers are not getting a fair go. I say to Gina Rinehart: we will never in Australia be working for what you want us to work for. We will never accept any advice from the richest person in Australia telling us that we should compare ourselves with workers earning two bucks a day.

I take the view that we need to properly tax our mining industry. It is not just my view; it is the view of some of the most senior economists in the country. It is also the view of the former Secretary of the Treasury that, if you do not make sure that you get a fair go, you will not be able to do properly what we need to do in this country.

I was on the committee that looked at the MRRT. You should not scrap the MRRT. Dr Ken Henry, the former Secretary of the Treasury, knew well that we should go down the path of the MRRT. There are issues, in my view, that we should look at in terms of the MRRT in the future. I did a dissenting report arising out of that committee and I said that there should be consistent reporting procedures for these mining companies; that we should undertake a detailed analysis of the sustainability and suitability of various allowances, including the uplift rates the long-term bond rate plus seven per cent; assess whether that bond rate is the appropriate standard for mining losses; monitor the appropriateness of the 25 per cent deduction. I took the view on a range of issues that they should be looked at but should never be scrapped, because they are absolutely important.

What we have from over the other side is basically political subservience to one of the most powerful and richest sectors in this country. This is a sector that sends 83 per cent of its profits overseas. These are not Australian companies; these are foreign owned companies. The mob on that side of the House get multimillion dollar donations from individuals in the mining industry and from the mining companies. It goes straight into the coalition slush funds, straight into the Free Enterprise Foundation, straight into the Millennium Forum. Why would they be here, standing up for the Australian public? They are standing up for their own political position, watching the money flow in from the big mining companies and keeping them in political power. They are massively conflicted in terms of this issue.

They are facilitating rent-seeking by these over 80 per cent foreign owned companies. They are putting big business interests before the national interest. They are diminishing what we in Australia call the fair go. We are not getting a fair go from these mining companies. They are entrenching power and privilege. What else would you expect from the conservatives? What else would you expect from the Liberal and National parties? They are increasing and preserving power and privilege in this country and they are increasing inequality, because these big mining companies are not paying their fair share of tax.

This is a mob who lied their way to power in this country. They lied to pensioners; they lied to seniors; they lied to students; they lied to sick people; they lied to the mums and dads of this country. Now they are here paying the price. The fiddlers are out there fiddling. The mining companies are fiddling and they are dancing to the mining companies' tune—absolutely no doubt about it. This is what this is about.

This is a finite resource. The mineral wealth of this country is a finite resource. I was quite taken aback when we heard about how much mineral resources we have in this country. In 80 years time all of the easily extractable minerals will be gone. Hopefully, my grandkids will still be alive then. If they are still alive, they will have to adjust to a country without a mining industry. So what do we move to?

Here is a mob over here that chases companies out, chases Toyota out, chases GM out: 'We don't want you.' It tells them, 'If you don't want to survive in this country without any government assistance, just go away.' So what do they do? They go away. So what are we left with? We are left with a big hole in the ground and no future. That is what we are left with. That is why we need money now from these miners—to build the future of this country. That is why it is so important. We want a fair return so we as governments can invest in the future for our kids.

There is a thing called the resources curse, the Dutch disease. Some of you may have heard about it. It is where a country has all these mineral resources and it then puts so much pressure on the other industries, because the dollar goes through the roof and your other industries hit the wall. I have asked time and time again over the last few years: will we suffer the Dutch disease? I have been told, 'Don't worry about it, Senator Cameron, we won't, but we certainly have. All of the predictions I have heard that we will not suffer the Dutch disease—from the Reserve Bank, from the Treasury, from ministers, from treasurers at Senate committee hearings—have been proved to be so much hogwash. Our dollar is high and no-one can figure out how to get the dollar down so the rest of the economy can take up the slack as the mining industry diminishes. It is a huge economic problem. It is a problem we do not seem to be able to deal with.

So the resources curse has hit Australia. The Dutch disease has hit us. But one way you can get out of it is the same way that other countries have taken. When you are making massive profits, when the mining companies are really piling the money up—millions and billions atop millions and billions—we should get our fair share. The problem is we cannot get our fair share because the mining companies are not registered predominantly in Australia. What they do is they head off overseas, and there is a report called Piping profits. They pipe profits all over the world. This report simply indicates what is happening.

Just before I go to that, Glencore are one of our biggest mining companies. They bought out Xstrata Coal. They earned $15 billion of income last year. Do you know how much tax they paid out of $15 billion? Nothing—zero, zilch, not a penny—from $15 billion of income. Here is a foreign owned multinational not paying a cent. Why didn't they pay a cent? Because they borrowed money off other Glencore companies from overseas at extremely high interest rates and then came to the Australian Taxation Office and said, 'We have to pay these high interest rate loans off,' and they get tax back from the Australian government. So they manipulate the tax system everywhere. They earn $15 billion in Australia and pay not a cent in tax. If there were ever a reason why you should have a minerals resource rent tax, that is it.

So what happens to all the money that is supposed to go to our hospitals, to pay our pensions, to look after our education system? It goes back to the company's main headquarters in some tax haven overseas and then it is split around all these high-paid executives who are ripping countries off all over the world. We should stop the rip-off in Australia. The coalition should stop making excuses for mining companies that will not pay their freight in this country. They should stop being apologists for the mining companies. They should stop justifying cuts to health, education, infrastructure. They should stop that. The money can be achieved in this country only if the miners pay their fair share, and the MRRT is the start of making sure they pay their fair share. So let's build a decent country, let's make sure there is fairness and let's make sure that the leaders of the mining industry pay a fair share. (Time expired)