Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Clearly, the government has something to hide when it comes to its dodgy mining tax. Over the last 18 months the government has been ducking and weaving and running for cover and being absolutely desperate to avoid having to table the information about its mining tax revenue assumptions. Clearly, its mining tax revenue estimates must be dodgy. Clearly the mining tax revenue estimates must not stand up to scrutiny. Why else is this government is so desperate to keep them secret from the scrutiny of this parliament?

The mining tax revenue estimates have been bouncing around ever since the Prime Minister and the Treasurer negotiated, exclusively and in secret, this mining tax deal behind closed doors, excluding all of the competitors of those three big mining companies from the process. What the government now tells us is that the mining tax revenue assumptions, commodity price assumptions and production volume assumptions are somehow a national secret. The government tells us that information is based on commercial-in-confidence data provided by the three big mining companies that were involved in the negotiations.

The logical conclusion of that argument is that not only were those three big mining companies given preferential access to the design of a massive new tax--which already gives those three companies a competitive advantage compared with everyone else who was excluded from the process—but also we are now told by this government that those three big mining companies are the only ones allowed to know what the government's mining tax revenue assumptions are. That is so outrageously inappropriate and improper that I cannot believe the Senate could possibly stand for that sort of contemptuous attitude from the executive government towards this chamber.

The mining tax deal negotiated by the government gave those three big companies a massive upfront tax deduction because it introduced the concept of a market value based upfront deduction. If you look at the revenue estimates, which are completely dodgy, and at the costs of all the related promises, which clearly exceed even the revenue that the government expects to collect, you can see that this mining tax package is yet another Labor Party fiscal train wreck in the making. It will put our budget at serious risk not only over the forward estimates but over the medium to long term, and it is quite unbelievable that the Greens, who were quite tough in their rhetoric over the past 12 months, have caved in and joined the Labor Party in this mining tax cover-up.

Question agreed to.