Ms JULIE BISHOP (3:14 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister now admit to the House that the tax he sought to compare to his supertax in his last answer is in fact an amendment to the mining royalty laws in Chile as an optional levy on miners to help rebuild the country and pay for the damage caused by the 27 February earthquake? Will the Prime Minister now apologise to the House and correct the record?

Mr RUDD (Prime Minister) —I welcome yet another question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She came to the dispatch box before seeking to assert that mining tax changes were somehow unique to this country and uniquely, therefore, punishing the mining industry in this country. The purpose of my intervention in the debate was twofold: firstly, to demonstrate that mining stocks in Latin America and Canada had done worse than in Australia and, secondly, there is a debate in the Chilean congress now on changes to Chile’s mining tax laws that are increasing those mining taxes and the mining industry is opposed to them. That is the purpose of this intervention.