Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sunday marks 12 months since the last federal election. As a new member of this great place and as someone who does not come from a political background, it has been an interesting 12 months. Tonight I would like to make some random observations on a few topics on a variety of fronts.

I come from a background that is a little different. I am a proud third-generation Western Sydney publican. I come from a family business background. One of the frustrations for me pre-politics was the quality of debate we have in this place and the lack of diversity of backgrounds of the people who partake in the debate. I thought that tonight I would take the opportunity to throw some random thoughts out there.

The Leader of the Opposition, in his MPI today, spoke about superannuation. He said no-one on this side understood what it meant, how it worked, and that we did not know what manual labour was about. I took great offence at that. I have employed thousands and thousands of people in my time—as did my father and grandfather. I would hate to think how many millions of dollars I have paid in superannuation. I have stood at the front door of a hotel at all times of the day and night. We in small family business land know what manual labour is. There is 55 per cent of the country employed in the SME space. We get it. We understand what super is. We invest in it every day.

I want to talk a little about the mining tax. Before I got here, the concept of a super-profit tax always did my mind in. If it is set at 30 per cent company tax and you have top-up Division 7A tax, whatever you have after it a percentage tax scale is a super-profit tax. The more you make, the more you pay. With regard to the argument that we should tax mining—and now the Greens are turning to banks—the financial reality is that the companies will just pass that on to shareholders. That is the reality. And guess what, when you look at the share registries of some of the biggest companies in this country, they are full of superannuants. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that we are asking them to pay twice.

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