Top business leaders are concerned the Senate budget impasse will deter foreign investment and make it harder for Australia to reach the growth target it is pressing on the Group of 20 leading nations.
The chief executives of ANZ Banking Group, Telstra, BHP Billiton and GE Mining called on opposition parties to respect the government's mandate and pass the $41 billion in cuts and savings that are stalled in the Senate.
BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said on Tuesday there was a political failure to recognise that the mining tax, which is raising much less than forecast, was deterring investment.
''The minerals resource rent tax … is a huge disincentive to invest and I think the people in the Senate don't get that,'' he told The Australian Financial Review B20 business lunch.
''What I would say to the Senate is, 'you are destroying huge amounts of potential inward investment that ultimately will pay a lot more tax in a much more stable way to actually pay for services by the way you're behaving'.''
BHP Billiton was a supporter of the MRRT and was part of the negotiations for the final design of the tax under its previous chief executive, Marius Kloppers.
''A really strong signal that Australia was open for business would be to get on and abolish the MRRT,'' he said.
Mr Mackenzie said would-be
foreign investors frequently raised the MRRT with him as a reason why they chose not to fund projects in Australia.
''The world will set the prices but we will set our costs,'' he said.
The Senate's refusal to scrap the mining tax and the government spending it funded will cost the budget more than $17 billion over the next four financial years, according to Treasury estimates.
When asked about the government's push to reduce red tape, scrap the mining tax and pass controversial budget measures, ANZ chief executive Michael Smith, Telstra chief executive David Thodey and GE Mining chief executive Steve Sargent all said they backed the government's reform agenda and called on the opposition to let it through.
Mr Thodey added the government ''had a very clear mandate after the election''.
''We have an electoral system and that's the way our democracy works and it is difficult in the Senate, but I would encourage [the government] to keep going,'' he said. ''They have a mandate and we should be supporting that.
''I can't solve the problems in the Senate and it is difficult, but we need them to keep going.''
Mr Smith backed Mr Thodey's call to support the government while saying he was ''not that surprised'' by the Senate's delays in passing government legislation.
''But I think it is disappointing,'' he said. ''This government has a very clear mandate from the people of Australia and they should be allowed to get on with it. We have to support the government to help them get on with it and to push that agenda.''
However, GE Mining's Mr Sargent said business leaders and the government should have acted sooner to sell the reform message to the Australian people.
''I've seen the Treasurer [Joe Hockey] do that a couple of times and that's pretty powerful,'' he said. ''If we could've done that on a broader basis that could've helped people understand the contextual reason for the change that we really need to be doing.''
But PUP leader Clive Palmer described the comments as ''rubbish'' and defended his party's voting record.
''It's the government's decision to parcel everything up with the mining tax and not ours,'' he said. ''But [to say they have a mandate] is just all rubbish because the people voted the numbers in the Senate and the numbers in the House. Greens leader Christine Milne also rejected calls by business leaders as ''utter nonsense''. The business leaders' call to arms will be presented to G20 leaders in Brisbane.
