Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It is hugely important to repeal the mining tax. The mining tax represents sovereign risk to potential investors in Australia. It has been a disastrous tax from its very inception. The mining tax has been one of the great financial disasters of modern times. In its original form it was meant to raise $12½ billion in this current financial year, but it has barely raised a dollar. The most insidious part of all this is that the Labor Party committed $16 billion of expenditure against a tax that raises no money. They were spending money they were never going to receive. That is the fraud the Labor Party has imposed on the Australian people, including the people of Western Australia who rely so heavily on the resources and mining industry. The Labor Party are the architects of the worst tax in modern times; a tax that hits everyday Western Australians and everyday Australians. It is a terrible tax. Yesterday, I said in 100 years time they will be writing about the mining tax as the worst tax that was ever designed. I did not know how apt it was for me to make that reference at the time, so I went back to the budget papers of a hundred years ago.

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