Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

The Labor Party under Bill Shorten continues to prove that when it comes to Western Australia, they just don’t get it.

Labor’s newly appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Western Australia Alannah McTiernan made the extraordinary claim this morning that it was ‘complete nonsense’ to suggest that the carbon tax and the mining tax were anti-WA taxes, which had a negative impact on the WA economy.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

The Minerals Resource Rent Tax was deliberately designed by Labor as a tax on Western Australia.

Indeed, it has never been disputed by the previous Labor government that nearly all of the expected revenue from the MRRT would come from iron ore production.

Nearly 100 percent of all relevant Australian iron ore production takes place in the Pilbara region of WA.

Consequently, most of the little revenue this national tax has raised comes out of the one single State of Western Australia.

In the meantime, this failed Labor tax has tied up a critically important industry for WA's ongoing economic success in massive costly red tape.

Furthermore, Western Australian taxpayers have been forced to pay $627 million in carbon tax last year, increasing the cost of living for families and increasing the cost of doing business in Western Australia.

When Labor took government in Canberra in December 2007 the unemployment rate in WA was 3.3 percent.

Today, after Labor's carbon tax and mining tax hits on WA and all of the additional red and green tape imposed by the previous government the unemployment rate has hit 5.9 percent.

The Abbott Government and Liberal Senators for Western Australia are working to deliver a better deal for WA.

We will scrap the carbon tax and the mining tax which are anti-WA taxes, we will continue to reduce red tape and invest in productivity enhancing infrastructure in WA.

Western Australia deserves a better deal.

Western Australia will get a better deal from the Abbott Government.