Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales) (3:19 PM) —I would like to have my say on the answers given to questions put to Minister Carr here today. Senator Carr said that this great big tax» on our «mining» industry will increase job opportunities. How, when you increase the taxes on industry, when you reduce investment and when you reduce exploration, is that going to increase jobs? I find that amazing.

Senator WILLIAMS —Straight out of North Korea—exactly! It is a $9 billion «tax». Those on the other side should be honest about this and tell the Senate that this is about a $9 billion «tax» collection to pay the interest on the debt that the Rudd government has accumulated. We are today looking at a $140 billion gross debt. In simple figures, five per cent on $140 billion is $7 billion. But, wait, there’s more: the debt has grown by more than $1 billion a week.

What this is about is tonight’s budget. It is so that the Treasurer can say, ‘We are bringing the deficit down; we are bringing $9 billion extra in every year by strangling the goose that lays the golden egg in Australia.’ That is what this is about. This is the industry about which Mr Rudd, prior to the 2007 election, said: ‘We must change our economy; we cannot be reliant on the «mining» industry. If it falls over and commodity prices crash, we need to have another source of income.’ What is he depending on? It was the «mining» industry, but now he is depending on taxing it as much as he can. I find this amazing. This is simply a great big «tax» to finance the great big debt.

We know where the great big debt came from. We can talk about Building the Education Revolution and the waste of money there. You will hear more about that in the near future, despite the Auditor-General’s report. We can talk about the waste in the pink batts fiasco, where we had a $2.6 billion program which is now costing $1 billion to clean the mess up. That is what this «tax» on the «mining» industry is about: collecting money to pay for the huge debt that the Rudd Labour government put our nation into. But that is nothing new: look back at the history of Labor, whether it be at the state level or the federal level, and tell me of one Labor government that, when they were thrown out of government, had reduced debt. Name one occasion.

Senator Abetz —Never!

Senator WILLIAMS —Never! This is what they are about: building debt and throwing money around willy-nilly. Then all of a sudden they say: ‘Well, now we have a problem. We have a $7 billion, $8 billion or $9 billion interest bill. How are we going to fund it? Oh, we will go up to the big end of town.’

Who owns those industries? Who owns Rio Tinto? Who owns BHP? The workers of Australia, those with superannuation, own them. What we are doing is strangling the future, the retirement fund for the working families, the working Australians that the people on the other side of the parliament are supposed to represent. You are strangling their retirement, because they are the people who own those industries. One accountant has given me figures today saying that 10 to 20 per cent of investment portfolios are directly in «mining» shares—for example, BHP and Rio Tinto. So you are strangling the workers’ retirement funds. You have already seen the damage that you have done to the stock market because of the announcement of this huge «tax» on that industry.

There is one thing that is interesting: when this «tax» is brought in and implemented by the Rudd government, Australia will pay about twice the «tax» of the «mining» industries in Canada, Brazil and China, yet we are expected to compete. What we are going to see—and we have already seen it—is the pulling out of investment and of exploration. Companies will tend towards South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil—you name it—anywhere where there are fewer costs so they can get the same product and make more profit. That is how free enterprise is. What this government is doing is simply scaring business out of our nation.

The one concern I really have is the fertiliser industry. Incitec Pivot have told the Stock Exchange that they will stop drilling for phosphate as a result of Labor’s new «mining» supertax. We have been importing our fertiliser onto our farms for years and here is an opportunity to have our own fertiliser in Australia and get a distinct benefit for our nation, but our Incitec people have said, ‘What’s the point of going ahead; we’ve been taxed out of existence.’ That is what this «tax is going to do, and that is why we on this side of the parliament will oppose it from the very beginning until Mr Rudd does another backflip and does away with it.