GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH

Senator SCARR (Queensland) (13:19): I think I'm the last on the list of speakers on this item of business, which is to respond to the Governor-General's address when our wonderful Governor-General—and I think Her Excellency is doing a fantastic job, with the support of Simeon—opened the parliament following the last federal election. This is an opportunity for all senators to say something in response to the Governor-General's address.

The first point I'd like to make is that, since Her Excellency the Governor-General gave her address, I've attended a number of functions hosted by the Governor-General in both Sydney and Canberra, and I want to thank the Governor-General and Simeon for their generosity of spirit. They so welcoming. I've seen people from all parts of the Australian community come together at the Governor-General's residence and be treated with warmth, be treated as individuals, be made to feel welcome and made to feel that they're really part of our Australian story.

So I commend Her Excellency with respect to the discharge of her responsibilities. The second point I want to make is that democracy is a wonderful thing. I'm co-chair of Parliamentary Friends of Refugees.

Last year Australia welcomed its one millionth refugee since World War II. It's absolutely extraordinary. So many of those people have now contributed so much to the Australian story.

Also, many of those people bring with them to Australia an appreciation of how important institutions like this—our parliament—are: the fact that we have elections every three years and the fact that every person in this place has the mandate of the people from their home state or territory. That is not the case in much of the world. Many of the people who come to this country as refugees have a deep appreciation and understanding of the importance of our freedoms and of our liberties.

Those are things that we must always remember. We are extraordinarily fortunate to live in this beautiful country. The Governor-General's address also gives us an opportunity to review some of the things that have happened in the last 12 months.

I'm afraid to say that I'm now, after my warm introductory words, going to change tack a bit, but that's the way it goes. When the Governor-General addresses the parliament, the Governor-General is basically giving a message from the incoming government—setting out the foundation for the incoming government—in this case our friends on the other side, the Labor Party.

I note that on the second page of the address—and this was 12 months ago—it said, 'The government will work to repay the trust Australians have placed in it.' So we now have the opportunity, 12 months after those words were spoken, to assess whether or not the government has repaid the trust Australians placed in it, and the report card isn't very good reading.

We all know that in the last budget the Labor government breached that trust. In the Prime Minister's own words, '50 times' before the last election the Prime Minister said there would be no change to capital gains tax and no change to negative gearing. That was the basis upon which the Prime Minister went to the Australian people before the last election.

But in government, in the last budget, he has broken that trust. He has done the opposite of what he said he would do before the last election. That's on the record, in the legislation that's been passed in this place over the last 12 months with the support of the Greens.

The Greens supported that breach of trust perpetrated by the Labor government. The Greens supported it, hand in glove with the Labor government. We should reflect on that.

And we should reflect on another statement contained in the address, and that is that the re-elected government would continue building on the foundation of its first term: 'aspiration and opportunity, shaping an economy that rewards effort and innovation'. That was in the address about 12 months ago and yet what do we see? We see tax changes that are going to drive entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, overseas.

Why would you start a business in Australia and pay punitive rates of tax in relation to capital gains when you can go to Canada and pay half as much or you can go to New Zealand and pay less? You could go to Singapore and pay less. That is my deep concern coming out of the government's performance over the past 12 months, that it's actually taxing ambition, taxing the entrepreneurial spirit and taxing those people who want to create wealth and prosperity for themselves, for their families and for the Australian people.

That is a grave concern. I come from the mining industry originally. The exploration industry is so important to mining in this country.

We have a tradition in this country of people—small shareholders, retail shareholders—investing in exploration companies, supporting their activities to find the new mineral deposits, critical minerals or whatever it is that may become the next mine and provide hundreds and thousands of jobs. We have that tradition. But the changes to capital gains tax will actually have a devastating impact upon our exploration industry.

That's what we're hearing from those small mining companies that are out there exploring, looking for the next opportunity to build wealth for our country. That's what they are saying. Again, they have options to move overseas.

They can go to Canada. They can go to South America. They can go overseas and take those opportunities with them.

That's what really does concern me. I want us to be a country where the next Seek Ltd—we all know Seek Ltd. That's where people go online and find their jobs—politicians always have to keep their options open after each election—so we know the value of Seek Ltd.

That is a business that has grown exponentially. It was founded in this country in the 1990s, but the founders of Seek Ltd have actually raised the issue of the tax changes and how it is going to provide a huge disincentive to innovation and building new businesses in this country. And now is not the time to do that.

We need to be able to harness all of the energy, all of the creativity, all of the talents we have across the Australian community. We need to harness that for the benefit of the Australian people and reward the effort that goes into building new businesses. Debate interrupted.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Sterle ): It nearly being 1.30 pm, we'll go to two-minute statements.