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PRIME MINISTER

28 May 2014
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MP
ADDRESS TO THE MINERALS WEEK 2014 ANNUAL MINERALS INDUSTRY
PARLIAMENTARY DINNER,
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

E&OE.

Andrew, thank you so much. I very much look forward to working with you and the other people in this
room to try to ensure that this industry continues to flourish.

We are all here, I suspect even Labor Members of Parliament are here because we want this industry to
flourish and I do acknowledge all my Parliamentary colleagues, particularly Ian Macfarlane, the Industry
Minister, the Shadow Treasurer and so many of my Parliamentary colleagues who are here tonight.

I want you to know that you are not in hostile territory; you are here amongst people who want you to
flourish and if there is one message that I can give you this evening, it is that this Government wants you to
succeed, because when you succeed, our country succeeds.

Back in September of last year, on election night, I said that Australia was under new management and that
we were once more open for business and I hope in the eight months since then you have seen plenty of
evidence to justify those statements.

We do appreciate what this industry does for our country. You may not employ as many as some other
industries only about two per cent of our workforce are in the mining and resources sector but you are 10
per cent plus of our GDP - and in recent times you have been some 60 per cent of new investment in our
economy.

Our prosperity rides on the ore and gas and coal carriers steaming the seas to our north, just as surely today
as once it rode on the sheeps back.

Our job in Government is to keep mining strong. Its not to tell you how to do your job; it is to allow you to
do your job.

Thats why this Government is utterly determined to abolish the mining tax because thats the third tax that
your industry pays on top of royalties and on top of company tax.

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We are determined utterly determined to abolish the carbon tax because, as your President has just
pointed out, this tax has achieved the quinella of damaging our economy without helping our environment.

We will restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission because in your industry, particularly
in the investment phase, there should be a tough cop on the beat to ensure that the ordinary law of the land
applies.

We are establishing a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals because massive investment requires swift
and certain processes and, even though there are still some steps to go before we get to that position, already
under this Government, projects worth $500 billion have received environmental approval.

And yes, there will be some additional support through a kind of capped flow-through share scheme for
small start-up miners.

You see, the main difference which Im sure you know but which I suspect many of our people have
forgotten, between the modern and the pre-modern world is energy consumption and it is our destiny in this
country to bring affordable energy to the world.

Its particularly important that we do not demonise the coal industry and if there was one fundamental
problem, above all else, with the carbon tax was that it said to our people, it said to the wider world, that a
commodity which in many years is our biggest single export, somehow should be left in the ground and not
sold. Well really and truly, I can think of few things more damaging to our future.

But, my friends, I want to speak to you tonight, not just as miners but as citizens.

I want to speak to you as Australians, not simply as business people.

I want to speak to you tonight not just about your industry and government policy towards your industry, but
about the Budget on which so much now rests.

I want to assure you that as far as this Government is concerned, the Budget is nothing like an indulgence to
keep economists happy. This Budget is a necessary response to an inherited debt and deficit disaster.

Now I know my predecessors did not mean to get us into the predicament in which we are in, but good
intentions are not enough to manage an economy, and the truth is that the former government gave us the six
biggest deficits in our history.

Under the policies of the former government we would have had four more record deficits. Under the
policies of the former government we would have had a decade of deficits. And as all of you know, any
entity that is spending more than it makes, any entity that is borrowing to pay the interest is doomed is
doomed.

It simply cannot continue.

Each years deficit means more debt and ever higher debt means ever higher interest $1 billion a month is
what the Commonwealth is currently paying. Every single month, $1 billion to meet the interest bill alone
and on the projections which we inherited, within a decade it would have been $3 billion every single
month.

It simply could not continue.

That interest is just dead money. Its money that we cannot spend on the things that we wish to invest in. Its
money that we couldnt invest in tax cuts, its money that we couldnt invest in schools and hospitals and
infrastructure. Its just dead money.
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So this Government simply had no option but to tackle the debt and deficit disaster. We had to tackle it, but I
want to say to you that the changes that we have made in this Budget are not made simply because theyre
necessary; theyre made because theyre right.

And how do you know that we believe theyre right? Because we have taken risks quite significant risks
in order to do what is right for our country.

The Medicare co-payment perhaps the most difficult policy change in this Budget. It sends a price signal
a necessary price signal because visits to the doctor might be free to most patients, but they certainly
havent been free to the taxpayers of this country. And if its right to pay a co-payment when you get a
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme drug, how can it somehow be morally wrong to face a modest co-payment
when you go to the doctor?

Indexation of most social security benefits to CPI rather than Male Total Average Weekly Earnings is
necessary, not because we want to be hard on anyone but because over the years the number of contributors
is shrinking and the number of beneficiaries is growing. At the moment the ratio of working age people to
retirement age people is 5:1. By 2050 it will be under 3:1. So these are necessary changes if our social
security system is to be sustainable for the longer term.

And yes, weve raised the pension age to 70. Lets never forget that when the pension age was first set at 65
back in 1907, most Australians died before the age of 60. Today, most Australians live to be beyond 80. Its
perfectly reasonable to take it up to 70 by 2035 when life expectancy and healthy life expectancy could
reasonably be expected to have increased again. If there was no real argument about taking it up to 67, as
happened under the former government with the support of the then opposition, why not take it to 70 by
2035?

And yes, theres some modest activity testing being brought in for the Disability Support Pension because
its cruelty, not kindness, to keep people on welfare when they could be economic contributors.

And yes, were expecting young people who leave school to either earn or learn, because we want them to
make the most of their lives and you dont make the most of your life by starting it on welfare.

And yes, there are some changes to Family Tax Benefit Part B for two reasons. First, because we do want to
bear down on whats often described as middle-class welfare, and while were all in favour of choice and
we want to support choice, theres a limit to the amount of taxpayer support there should be for families
once the youngest child is at school.

And yes, there are higher education changes, because unlike every single government in this country up until
now, we trust our best and our brightest, whether theyre in universities or considering going to universities,
to make rational decisions about their future.

And not only do we trust them, but we trust our future tradies, we trust people who are going for diplomas as
well as degrees to make rational decisions for their future and thats why we have extended the FEE-HELP
system effectively to them.

Now some of these changes are very difficult.

Some of these changes are hard for people to get their minds around.

Change is often bracing, change is often challenging, but sometimes change is necessary and I believe that
the changes that we have brought forward in this Budget represent the best values of our people.

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These are, I have to say, testing times for our Government but theyre also testing times for our country. But
I am confident that our character, I am confident that our countrys character is up for these changes.

As the Treasurer said in his Budget night speech, we are a nation of lifters, not leaners. We are a nation of
workers, not shirkers.

We are people who are just as determined to have a go as we are determined to extend a fair go to others.

So my friends, its very good of you to be here this evening.

Thank you for coming to this Parliament. Thank you for bringing to this Parliament bringing to all of us on
all sides of politics the insights that you have from the work that you do.

Thank you for coming at this critical time in the life of the new Government.

I think over the past eight months youve seen enough to know the character of this Government.

We have all but stopped the boats.

We have responded quite appropriately to requests for corporate welfare given that the age of entitlement is
dead.

We have successfully negotiated two out of three of the major free trade agreements that weve been
pitching for as a nation.

As youve seen in the Budget a fortnight ago, we are capable of meeting the fiscal challenges that our
country faces.

I hope youve seen the warm heart that every decent person should have, the clear head that every serious
thinker should have and above all else, the strong spine the backbone that a good government needs.

Thank you so much.

[ends]