EO&E..............................................................................................................................................................

 

 

It’s terrific to be here at Maptek. I’d like to thank Bob Johnson and his team for making Christopher Pyne and myself so welcome. This is a marvellous example of what Australia can do. We have the innovation, we have the skills, we have the tenacity to succeed in manufacturing as well as in so many other areas, but what we need is a government which takes burdens off people rather than dumps burdens on people and that’s the difficulty here. We have a business which is a world leader at highly sophisticated surveying machines, a business which is more than capable of competing against the best in the world and beating them at their own game and it’s critically dependent upon an expanding Australian mining industry and not a shrinking Australian mining industry.

 

Now, obviously here in South Australia, it’s very important that the Olympic Dam Expansion go ahead. This is a $30 billion investment. It will create some 15,000 jobs directly in the construction phase. It will add about $6 billion a year to the local South Australian economy. This is a massive investment, vital for Australia’s future, let alone for the future of South Australia and it’s vital that government does everything that it reasonably can to make this project go ahead and my positive message for the people of South Australia is that an incoming Coalition government will scrap the carbon tax, it will scrap the mining tax, it will restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That means that the cost structures of investing and mining in this country will be lower under a Coalition government. That means it is easier for giants with international projects like BHP to invest in this country. I want Olympic Dam to go ahead and I will put the policies in place that will make it more likely that this massive project will proceed.

 

We also see today more bad news for Australian families as a result of the carbon tax. In New South Wales, electricity prices will be going up on average by 18 percent, in some cases by 20 percent and about half of that is the carbon tax. So, if Julia Gillard wanted to take the pressure off Australian families, if she wanted to make it easier for Australian families to meet their bills, she could cut those increases in half by abolishing the carbon tax.

 

Finally, let me say that very few Australian businesses would have their confidence in government boosted by the sterile talkfest that we’ve just had in Brisbane last night and again today. This was not about changing policy. This is about making excuses for failure. This is a Prime Minister who is looking for a photo opportunity as she flounders, rather than a Prime Minister who is seriously looking at changing policy to make it easier to do business in this country. We’ve had a survey come out today which shows that almost 50 percent of Australian businesses felt that the recent Budget has hurt them. How can anyone have confidence in the Australian economy when it’s impossible to have confidence in the Australian Government? Now, while all this is going on, I keep saying to the Australian people that there is a better way. We are a great country and a great people being let own by a bad government. Over the last few months, in five key areas, I have been outlining plans for a stronger Australia. They are there for everyone to see. I think the Australian people can have confidence that the Coalition is not just an effective opposition, but a strong and credible alternative government that will deliver the hope, reward and opportunity that Australians want.

 

I’m going to ask Christopher to say a few words and then I think Bob Johnson, the founder of this business, is entitled to say a few words as well. Christopher, over to you.

 

 

Thank you very much, Tony. I very much welcome the visit of Tony Abbott to South Australia for the next couple of days. At least one leader in Australia needs to put beyond doubt that Olympic Dam will go ahead without the uncertainty that the current Gillard Government has created around mining in Australia - whether it’s doubts about accelerated depreciation, the fuel tax rebate, green tape, red tape. All of these creations of uncertainty by this government have caused BHP Billiton to question whether they’ll make the deadline for an announcement about Olympic Dam by the end of this year. I directly blame the Gillard Government for that. Olympic Dam must go ahead. It is vital to South Australia’s interests. Without it, our state will go dramatically backwards. Only one political party is prepared to end uncertainty that surrounds the mining industry in Australia and Tony Abbott’s outlined that today. It’s music to the ears of all South Australians and I hope that they will take that message very much to heart over the coming month and years.

 

Secondly, on electricity prices, can I just remind people that electricity prices in Adelaide have risen 18 per cent in the last twelve months and the Energy Users Association of Australia says that from July the 1st, because of the carbon tax, South Australia will have the highest electricity prices in the world. Now, if it’s not bad enough that we’re the highest taxed state in the world by our state government, because of our federal government we’ll now have to bear the burden of the highest electricity prices in the world. It is a real hit to Adelaide's cost of living at a time when we can least afford it. So, we do need a change of government and we need it soon if we are to reduce the burden on Australian and Adelaide households from this federal government and end the uncertainty over the mining industry and the Olympic Dam expansion itself.

 

 

I’d like to thank everybody for your patience and our people here and for Tony and Christopher for visiting. It’s very important to Australia, mining. Mining is the business of Australia. People don’t like to admit that, but basically it creates the vast bulk of our wealth. Businesses like Maptek exist only because of the mining industry and we basically help them become more productive. We then export our product around the world, helping other people develop their mines productively, safely and making a significant contribution. So, when things like the mining tax come along, there are massive negatives for the mining industry – they just slow everything down, create uncertainty and drive investment to other countries. There are plenty of other minerals in other countries that will be developed ahead of ours if we put policies in place that prohibit that development.

 

 

Mr Abbott, how can you say that there’s a lack of confidence? You said at one stage, how can anyone be confident. Are you saying that businesses shouldn’t be confident about the economy despite the statistics and what do you say about $500 billion worth of investment coming down the pipeline in the resources sector, I mean, surely that’s a huge vote of confidence?

 

 

There’s a lot of investment which is already committed and much of that will go ahead, but what the mining industry is saying almost universally is that under current circumstances, particularly with current government policies, there will be no new commitments made. As Marius Kloppers said on Lateline last week, because of a range of factors, including the mining tax, Australia has gone from being a low-cost place to do business to a high-cost place to do business. That’s why we can’t expect new investment commitments once this lot have been put in place and the task of sensible government is to secure tomorrow today. Unfortunately the current government is jeopardising tomorrow today.

 

 

So, Christopher Pyne has squarely put the blame on the Federal Government’s shoulders. Are you saying that if BHP does delay it then that is squarely the fault of the Federal Government as well?

 

 

I am saying that the only political party which is prepared to maximise the chances of Olympic Dam going ahead is the Coalition because we are the party that will say no to a mining tax, no to a carbon tax and yes to a strong Australian Building and Construction Commission which means that your construction projects would take place under the rule of law.

 

 

The mining tax doesn’t actually apply to Olympic Dam at the moment and the Government says that it is absolutely fallacious to suggest that it’s going to be expanded at some point in the future.

 

 

Well, this is the same government that said "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" so any commitments that this government gives not to further expand the mining tax ought to be taken as seriously as the Prime Minister’s pre-election commitments on the carbon tax. I don’t think anyone in the mining industry believes that they aren’t going to get further clobbered after an election should this government win. This government, of course, will clobber other parts of the mining industry. It will increase the rate of the mining tax if it gets reelected because they need the money. The mining tax as it stands is unlikely to raise the revenue that they have put into the budget forward estimates, so, of course they are going to expand the mining tax to increase the revenue and that means that projects like Olympic Dam are at risk. If the government is serious about getting Olympic Dam up and running, they would at the very least be prepared to enter into a project agreement with BHP to absolutely exclude Olympic Dam from any additional mining taxes for its entire life.

 

 

Doesn’t it already have that? I mean, Marius Kloppers was involved in the design of the MRRT which limits it to coal and iron ore. So, isn’t that in effect already?

 

 

Of course not. The mining companies are under no illusions about this government. They know that they cannot trust this government. I think the only way to restore the mining industry's faith in Australia as a place to do business and as a place to invest is to abolish the mining tax and that’s what we’ll do.

 

 

Have any mining companies directly told you that they are suspending or will consider suspending investments as a result of these taxes?

 

 

Company after company has said to me and to my colleagues that committed investment will go ahead but no new commitments will be made under current conditions and, sure, the dollar is one of the those conditions, international prices are one of those conditions, but crucially, domestic costs are one of those conditions and government contributes to all of those domestic costs when it puts on new taxes like the mining tax and the carbon tax and makes it harder to get projects underway on budget by abolishing things like the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

 

 

So, how will you raise an alternative stream of revenue if you completely scrap the mining tax?

 

 

Well, we’ve said all along that we will find appropriate reductions in government expenditure. We will find savings from wasteful and unnecessary government programmes and that’s how we will be able to give people tax cuts and pension relief without a carbon tax.

 

 

The PM’s asked businesses to speak up about the strength of the economy. Is she trying to pit business against yourself?

 

 

Well, it takes a floundering Prime Minister to go and beg business to talk up her government. That’s essentially what she’s done. She has invited the businesses of Australia to come to Brisbane to beg with them to start talking up her government. Now, I think that the businesses of Australia are only too well aware that the biggest threat to their success is in fact the Government itself because this is a government which just can’t help itself. It’s always loading up business with more taxes, with more red tape and it is a government which simply doesn’t get it when it comes to business as it’s deployment of class war rhetoric against elements of the mining industry makes absolutely crystal clear.

 

 

New South Wales power prices are going to go up and are forecast to go up but wasn’t that always going to be the case? Isn’t that why Australian families are getting compensation that the Government is offering, since isn’t that the offset for these power increases?

 

 

Well, I make this point about the so-called compensation: the compensation is for today, the carbon tax is forever as far as this government is concerned and the carbon tax will go up and up and up over time but the so-called compensation will just stay where it is so I make that point. The other point I make is, sure, power prices have gone up in recent times. This government is making a bad situation much, much worse through its carbon tax and if the Prime Minister wanted to ease the squeeze on Australian families by abolishing the carbon tax, then she could halve the price rise.

 

 

Was it necessary to keep the media and the public from most aspects of the economic forum?

 

I think that this is a Prime Minister who basically wants effectively advertisements made for her government and what she didn’t want to see was critical questioning of herself and her ministers and that inevitably would have been the case had the media been allowed in. Look, this whole thing in Brisbane is a PR stunt from a government which is desperate to try to buy its way back into political contention. We know the billions that are being spent right now on handouts to people - and I don’t begrudge them the money because they are under pressure - but we all know what the Government is trying to do here. It is trying to buy support. We see the millions that they're spending on taxpayer-funded advertising and now, of course, this transparent attempt to co-opt business as some kind of cheer squad for a government that business knows is the worst thing for economic confidence in Australia right now.

 

[ends]