The other side of politics is addicted to spending, it's in thrall to unions and it’s engaging in what can only be described as a class war. I can remember years and years ago someone saying that to grow rich is glorious. It was in fact none other than Deng Xiaoping, the former leader the Communist Party of China. That lesson, alas, has been lost on the current leaders of the Australian Labor Party who think that to get rich might be glorious but if you earn more than $80,000 as a single or $150,000 as a family, we're means-testing you out of benefits and Heaven help anyone who happens to be a billionaire and criticises government policy. It doesn't matter how many jobs you've created, it doesn't matter how much investment you've brought into this country, you're fair game to be demonised in the Australian Parliament. Well, it’s not the way to run a country and it's certainly not the way that the Coalition will proceed.

Right now, there are a range of threats to the continued prosperity and expansion of the minerals sector. Obviously there is the mining tax which initially would have been immediately crippling for your sector but even in this revised version is still a threat to your long-term expansion. The whole point of the mining tax is that it neglects the fact that this sector is already paying plenty of tax. Mining companies, resources companies, they pay ordinary company tax, they pay royalties. They are already doubly-taxed and they are appropriately taxed through royalties for the non-renewable resources that they take from the ground, but to be doubly-taxed is surely enough; you don't need to be triply-taxed as you would be and will be under the minerals resource rent tax.

The interesting thing about the minerals resource rent tax, formerly the resources super profits tax, is that it was supposed to be a fundamental reform. It was supposed to be a way of spreading the benefits of the mining boom to those sectors of our economy that are not enjoying such prosperity. But the reform has turned in to a handout. The money from the mining sector that was supposed to fund a tax cut for other businesses has now been redirected into a series of cash splashes.

Now, I don't know how many of you would have received these letters – probably not very many – but to give you an example as to how this Government's so-called reforms have degenerated, let me read from a letter from has gone out to millions of Australians just in the last few days: “Extra cash for you. You have just received some extra money. This advance is just the start. There's more to come. From the middle of next year you will get extra cash with your regular payments. Don't worry, you don't need to make a new claim. This will come automatically just like the cash you've just had. P.S, this is just part of the extra help the Government is giving to millions of Australians.” Well, ladies and gentlemen, not for a second do I begrudge the forgotten families of our country, the struggling people of our country, extra assistance. But how responsible is it for the Federal Government of this country to be paying more handouts at this time on borrowed money because that's the truth of what this Government is doing right now.

Then, of course, there's the carbon tax and we all know what the carbon tax is designed to do: it is designed to reduce our use of coal and our use of gas. In other words, it is designed to limit the production, ultimately, of the minerals upon which our country so critically depends and if you look at the government’s own modelling, iron and steel production is projected to be down by 21 percent within four decades because of the carbon tax. Aluminium production designed to be down 61 percent in that time period because of the carbon tax. The government’s own documents say that Australia’s energy production from coal, absent carbon capture and storage, will fall from over 70 percent right now to 10 percent by 2050.

So, the carbon tax is designed to damage the very things on which our country's wealth depends. The only way our country's wealth can survive the carbon tax is if other countries don't do what we're doing. If China and India took the same attitude to coal and gas that we are taking, our export industries would be in diabolical trouble and, of course, the carbon tax will not even reduce in the short or medium term the emissions that it is designed to reduce.

Again, if you look at the government's own modelling, emissions are 578 million tonnes now. Even with a carbon tax of $37 a tonne by 2020 they will be 621 million tonnes and then, of course, there are workplace relations changes that you are wrestling with, particularly the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission which has done so much to ensure that the rule of law operates in major engineering projects. The one thing that this government did to try to help you was announce enterprise migration agreements a couple of budgets ago and I commend the Minister for Resources for his robust defence of enterprise migration agreements before this audience today. I just hope he was as robust in the caucus yesterday because this is a government which is already walking away from these agreements. What has happened over the last few days is that the unions spooked the Prime Minister and now the caucus has rolled the cabinet on these matters. You can be absolutely confident that as time goes by, these enterprise migration agreements will be more difficult to negotiate, more onerous yet less useful to you in your desire to try to develop appropriately our country.

So, my job is to try to demonstrate to you and to prove to our country that there is a better way and you know that it is possible to massively develop our minerals sector because that's what you were doing for so many decades prior to the shocks of the last few years. We will abolish the mining tax. We will abolish the carbon tax. Now, I've had people say to me but it's hard, isn't it? Well, let me assure you that a tax that's been put in place by legislation can be removed by legislation. What the Parliament does, the Parliament can undo. Now, yes, the Government talks to journalists about how they are Abbott-proofing all of the changes that they've made. People-proofing is effectively what they're doing. They are trying to prevent the next elected government from undoing the harm that they have done and there is no doubt that there are measures associated with both the mining tax and the carbon tax that will be difficult to undo.

Doctor Jolly wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 5:08pm:



No Tnoy will collect it for her as usual.