Raising revenue by taxing the big end of town

We could raise billions if we taxed the coal industry properly.

On the first day back in Parliament after the NSW State Election, Abigail raised exactly this in a speech following question time, calling out the new Labor Government for refusing the pay rise that public sector workers deserve while this potential revenue stream sits untapped.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD (14:42): We saw a really disappointing narrative during the election campaign. When either the Labor shadow Treasurer or the Liberal Treasurer at the time were asked about how they would pay for things, there was a false dichotomy between either raising more debt or cutting spending on infrastructure, or whatever measures were being used to scare voters at the time. Any discussion about revenue raising was lacking. Many great ideas about the sources of revenue that the Government could take advantage of have been put on the table. The top of those is what happened in Queensland where the Queensland Government rejigged its coal royalty scheme in order to make a more progressive scheme. The State already had a progressive scheme but the Government added a few more tiers. They were able to raise a significant amount of money from that.

The Australia Institute's analysis shows that if New South Wales had the same quite conservative rates that Queensland has, the State could have raised between $4 billion and $6 billion of extra revenue in this financial year. That just happens to be almost the same amount as that needed for a decent pay rise for workers in the public sector. I am quite concerned that we are going to end up with the new Labor Government saying that its hands are tied. I get that, because the Liberal-Nationals Government made a mess of the State's finances. When looking at how the State is going to pay for essential services and essential public sector workers and give them the wages they deserve, we will have to get a bit creative, and that means taxing the big end of town.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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Raising revenue by taxing the big end of town

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

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