PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The newly elected Tony Abbott-led government on Thursday released draft legislation to repeal Labor’s controversial minerals resource rent tax (MRRT), in the hopes of abolishing the tax by July 1, 2014.

Treasurer Joe Hockey said that the MRRT was a complex and unnecessary tax that struggled to raise the substantial revenue predicted by the previous government.

“Further still, this failed tax imposed significant compliance costs on one of our most important industries, while damaging business confidence, which is critical to future investment and jobs.”

The much-contested MRRT, which was introduced in 2012, has failed to raise its expected revenues, with predictions that the tax would only raise some A$7.2-billion by 2016/17, nearly A$5-billion less than previously anticipated.

The tax raised only A$126-million over the first half of the 2012/13 financial year.

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (Amec) said on Thursday that the release of the draft legislation was a step towards restoring confidence in the mining and mineral exploration industry.

“Since the resource super profits tax and the MRRT were first announced in 2010, Amec has consistently stated that the mining tax was an ill-conceived, poorly designed, discriminatory and a refutably bad tax that should be rescinded and replaced with a long-term tax strategy that encourages investment and is internationally competitive,” said CEO Simon Bennison.

He added that the repeal would go a long way to restoring confidence and much needed investment back into the mining industry, and would remove costs on industry and save the government millions in the administration of the tax.

Amec called on the opposition parties to support the repeal of the carbon tax and MRRT legislation in accordance with the government’s mandate provided by the Australian public at the September election.

Earlier this month, the newly government also moved to abolish the carbon tax, releasing draft legislation to repeal that law.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott was hoping to pass the carbon tax repeal before the end of the year, and Hockey noted that submissions on the MRRT repeal legislation would be open until the end of the month.