Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Senator Cormann’s speech on his motion to take note of answers given by Senator Wong today in question time he spoke about payments of royalties. I find that very interesting because it is the one argument that often gets left out of this debate. That is because the proposed resource super profits tax replaces mining royalties. This makes the RSPT more efficient than existing arrangements. This means that some projects will actually pay less tax, particularly the marginal and less profitable projects that the coalition says are at risk.

Those opposite are so intent on running a scare campaign in relation to the RSPT that the first thing Senator Birmingham stood up to debate was how many times Senator Bishop had mentioned the Prime Minister by name. So let me get that out of the way to start with. I am happy to mention the Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd. The Rudd Labor government has announced this super profits tax to ensure that all Australians get a fair share from our non-renewable national resources. That is what those on the other side just will not spell out to everybody. They are running a scare campaign in the media, and both sessions of question time so far this week have been taken up with it, as I am sure the rest of the week and next week will be. It is very similar to what happened in the last sitting weeks: just about every question turned out to be about asylum seekers because they were getting a bit of a media run and they wanted to keep that up. We are happy to take up the challenge. We are happy to point out to people the importance of this tax to everyday Australians, to working Australians, to those people that are not the big mining companies that you are supporting and that in return are supporting you with their billion-dollar campaign. They will be out there, as we heard today from Senator Sherry, being able to claim the tax on their big campaign. We know that you are supporting them because they are your mates.

Earlier you feigned support for working people. Let’s not ever forget that you were the government that brought in Work Choices. We know that Work Choices II—perhaps it will get a different name—will certainly be on Mr Abbott’s agenda should you ever be elected into government with him as leader. I hope that never happens for the people of Australia.

Let us remember that before the last mining boom Australians received $1 in every $3 of mining profits through royalties and charges, but during the last mining boom, as mining profits increased, we saw a decreasing share of profits returned to the Australian people. What has happened? The return has shrunk to $1 in every $7. Although profits were over $80 billion higher in 2008-09 than in 1999-2000, governments only collected an additional $9 billion in revenue. Australia needs to deliver a fair share of these resource profits to the Australian people because a fair share will mean, amongst other things, higher retirement savings; less company tax, especially for those thousands of small businesses; and more infrastructure like rail, ports and roads.

Between the mining industry and those opposite we have seen plenty of bizarre claims during this sketchy scare campaign. If they were so worried about it, why did one of the shadow ministers dash out and buy some shares in BHP? I think it was the member for Dickson, but I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong in that respect. The only reason they oppose this so vociferously is that it suits them politically. They will run their massive scare campaign because they can guarantee that it will be backed up, as I said, by those big mining companies. They will keep receiving campaign contributions from their billionaire mates like Clive Palmer. When Australians go to the poll at the next federal election they will have a clear choice, and I hope they remember it. They will have the clear choice of whether they want a 12 per cent superannuation guarantee or whether they want their super stuck at nine per cent. On this side of the chamber we stand for reducing the tax burden on small business and we stand for boosting the retirement savings of ordinary working Australians. We stand for infrastructure investment in the mining regions of Australia. (Time expired)