E&OE
Subject: Minerals Resource Rent Tax
BENSON: Martin Ferguson, you are within $20 million a year of a deal with the Greens on an $11 billion mining tax. Are you confident the small change can be sorted out?
FERGUSON: I’m pleased the Government is now within striking distance of achieving a major reform, in terms of the Australian community getting a fair share of the mining industry boom. It’s now a question of, I suppose, taking it through the House of Representatives this week, and it will go through the Senate in the February session of the Parliament next year.
BENSON: And it will take effect then in July?
FERGUSON: The effective date of the tax is the first of July 2012, but obviously we’ve got a phase in of the improvements, and they are quite significant to the broader community; cuts in company taxation, a capacity for 2.7 million small business to get an immediate write off of $6,500 from the first of July next year on new capital equipment; improvements in infrastructure, especially in the regions under the pump from the resources boom, and over time a real opportunity, significant to me because I was part of the original superannuation campaign, improvements in superannuation for around 8.4 million workers.
BENSON: This has been a fantastically destructive exercise for the Labor Party. You lost a lot of public support in the face of a mining lobby campaign against you. You lost a Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd. Has it been worth it?
FERGUSON: The achievements in the end will stand the test of time, because in my opinion the broader Australian community understands that this tax is now right. It’s had a difficult birth, there’s not doubt about that, and hopefully this week we see this very important tax pass the House of Representatives. And, the broader Australian community in the end, over many, many years will be the beneficiaries of this significant reform.
BENSON: Is the battle now over? You might have won it through the Legislative Assembly and the Senate with the Greens’ support, as anticipated. But are you now going to be fighting on another front with the states?
FERGUSON: On the issue of the scientific approach to the determination of significant coal seam methane and coal projects, can I firstly say there’s been a very good process of discussion lead by my department with the state and territory governments and I express my sincere appreciation to the support given to that process to date.
The agreement by the Prime Minister with Windsor and Oakeshott, I suppose puts another layer over the top of that. I’ve got a Ministerial Council on the ninth of December, I just plead with my Ministerial colleagues to just sit back and examine what’s on the table, because it’s not different in intent to what we’ve been doing over recent months, obviously by proper discussion and dialogue.
But I think hopefully that we’ll be able to work this issue through because the intent of state and territory ministers and myself is the same, that’s to apply best practice of scientific approach that’s transparent in nature in terms of a proper consideration of water issues.
But I also say to all those in this debate, if you want a scientific approach, don’t move the goal posts yet again. Accept the outcome of these processes because time and time again the Commonwealth Government, working with states, has devoted financial contributions to actually doing this scientific work, then the goal posts have been moved. This is it. You can’t argue for these outcomes, and then because it doesn’t suit you politically because projects might get approved, to want to move the goal posts yet again.
BENSON: But are you, nonetheless, facing in realistic terms a battle with the states? Because at stake is power and money, and the states aren’t going to be giving up those lightly.
FERGUSON: The Commonwealth is not about taking over the regulatory responsibilities of state and territory governments, nor should we be. On land the state or a territory government is the primary regulator. We’re about working with the states through the allocation of $150 million to provide transparent objectives, scientific evidence in terms of how we make decisions on key environmental issues, such as water. In essence we’re trying to set up a co-operative partnership which assists states in winning back community support for what is a very, very important industry.
Gas is clean energy, and this is about our transition to a lower emissions economy, and in doing so, and the Gladstone area is a prime example, create real jobs. $45 billion in new investment and you go to regional communities such as Biloela, and you see an apprenticeship centre with local kids, boys and girls being trained and adult apprentices being trained, that would not have been there in the backblocks of regional Queensland without this industry.
BENSON: Martin Ferguson thanks very much.