Division
Eric Abetz I move: That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed. The issue before the committee is the repeal of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax. We went to the last election with a firm promise to repeal that tax, destructive and corrosive as it was for our minerals and resources sector. It is a tax that is pay by about 20 companies, but 125 companies have to report against the tax, despite the fact that they make no contribution. When this tax was first mooted by the previous government, it was going to raise, according to them, thousands of millions of dollars. We now know that not to be the case. In fact, we are lucky if it raises about $300 million. But against that paltry amount of money raised, the previous government hypothecated expenditures over the forward estimates of some $17,000 million. Now the Senate in its amendments has basically determined that, yes, we will get rid of the tax, which only raised a measly $300 million, but we still want all of the expenditures of some $17,000 million over the forward estimates. I say to the Senate that we cannot have it both ways, and as a government we will not have it both ways. One of our important election commitments to the Australian people was that we would seek to get the budget back into a sustainable position. To say on the one hand that we will vote down a tax, but to then say we want all of the expenditure and $16,700 million more of expenditure simply does not add up. What is more, we went to the Australia people at the last election saying, 'We want to remove the mining tax and in so doing we will also remove all the expenditures the previous government had hypothecated against that income.' So we took the public odium for saying, 'Sorry, but we do need to abolish the schoolkids bonus; sorry, we do need to abolish the income support bonus,' and so on with about six expenditure measures. So we were up-front, we told the Australian people. Never
Senate, 2014-07-17. negative: ayes 29, noes 37.
Question
Eric Abetz I move: That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed. The issue before the committee is the repeal of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax. We went to the last election with a firm promise to repeal that tax, destructive and corrosive as it was for our minerals and resources sector. It is a tax that is pay by about 20 companies, but 125 companies have to report against the tax, despite the fact that they make no contribution. When this tax was first mooted by the previous government, it was going to raise, according to them, thousands of millions of dollars. We now know that not to be the case. In fact, we are lucky if it raises about $300 million. But against that paltry amount of money raised, the previous government hypothecated expenditures over the forward estimates of some $17,000 million. Now the Senate in its amendments has basically determined that, yes, we will get rid of the tax, which only raised a measly $300 million, but we still want all of the expenditures of some $17,000 million over the forward estimates. I say to the Senate that we cannot have it both ways, and as a government we will not have it both ways. One of our important election commitments to the Australian people was that we would seek to get the budget back into a sustainable position. To say on the one hand that we will vote down a tax, but to then say we want all of the expenditure and $16,700 million more of expenditure simply does not add up. What is more, we went to the Australia people at the last election saying, 'We want to remove the mining tax and in so doing we will also remove all the expenditures the previous government had hypothecated against that income.' So we took the public odium for saying, 'Sorry, but we do need to abolish the schoolkids bonus; sorry, we do need to abolish the income support bonus,' and so on with about six expenditure measures. So we were up-front, we told the Australian people. Never
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Related bills
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