CFMEU boss Zach Smith confirms union will call for super profits tax at Labor conference

The CFMEU has launched a major campaign demanding a super profits tax be applied to the nation’s richest companies.

CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The CFMEU has launched a major campaign demanding a super profits tax be applied to the nation’s richest companies to plug a half a trillion dollar hole in social and affordable housing investment over the next 15 years, with the union saying it would bring on the issue at Labor’s nat­ional conference in August.

The union’s national secretary, Zach Smith, will tell the National Press Club on Tuesday that the Albanese government needs to “move more boldly than we’ve done for a while” to address the housing crisis, unveiling modelling that showed there was now a gap of 750,700 social and affordable dwellings in Australia.

The data, released by Oxford Economics Australia and commissioned by the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, showed an investment above $500bn would be needed to close the gap by 2041.

“Not only can government step in to fix big intractable nat­ional problems – it must. The state has a role to play and Australians want the state to play it,” Mr Smith says in a draft version of his speech seen by The Australian. “This reform could end homelessness in Australia.

“It could boost productivity. It could lift millions out of poverty and distress. It could strengthen our social fabric.”

Along with confirming it would put forward a motion to national conference – where MPs, party members and unionists debate Labor’s national platform – the CFMEU has launched a 30-second ad campaign to run “in every major market” across all states and territories.

“There’s something very wrong in Australia when the corporate profits of our largest companies are the biggest they’ve ever been, while too many Australians can barely afford rent,” the ad, which features a single mum working as a cleaner in a corporate office, tells viewers.

“We can fix the housing crisis with a super profits tax, which will build 53,000 social and affordable homes each year.”

Mr Smith would not confirm the dollar figure behind the high production advertisement but said the union was prepared to run the campaign “for years” if the CFMEU’s motion was not picked up at national conference.

The Oxford Economics Australia report assumes a super profits tax of 40 per cent on the richest 0.3 per cent of companies across the country, which are defined as those with a turnover of more than $100m. “Our analysis indicates that an economy-wide super profits tax could raise the $28bn per annum investment required to close the housing gap in social and affordable housing by 2041,” the report states.

“Over the next decade alone, this tax could raise $290bn. This includes $128bn from mining projects, excluding those already covered by other resource rent taxes, and $63n from non-mining companies with turnover greater than $100m.”

The proposal laid out in the Oxford Economics Australia report mirrors a policy being demanded by the Greens, which also calls for “a 40 per cent tax on corporations with more than $100m in turnover in Australia”.

Mr Smith acknowledged it was not likely the motion – the wording of which is being finalised – would get up at national conference. “It’s a big idea, there is going to be opposition, especially from certain figures in the business community,” he said. “The political reality is when you have big ideas like this, it takes time.”

A super profits tax has been proposed by Labor governments in the past, with Kevin Rudd’s attempt at introducing a resource super profits tax on the back of the commodity price boom in 2010 seen as one of the reasons he lost his prime ministership.

The Minerals Council of Australia has warned against any revival of such a policy, given the mining industry’s contribution to the government’s $20bn surplus.

Mr Smith said the CFMEU’s proposal went further than targeting only the resources industry and he expected banks and supermarkets to also be captured.

The latest version of Labor’s draft national platform, seen by The Australian, proposes “taxation reforms” to affect market changes and increase supply in the country’s strapped housing market.

While Labor is facing pressure to revisit policies that clamp down on negative gearing, government sources said this was not being suggested in the platform’s proposal for “taxation reforms”, which related to tax incentives in the May budget for investment in build-to-rent projects.

Mr Smith said such proposals were a step in the right direction, as were policies such as Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund being blocked by the Greens and Coalition in parliament, but neither went far enough to address the housing crisis.