I’m sick to death of hearing & reading about the Resource Super Profits Tax, aren’t you?
I’m sick of hearing how both sides of the stoush claim moral high-ground, when it’s patently clear to anyone with even a passing interest in the politics of the issue – and that’s all that’s at stake here – that genuine facts are not being aired. It’s patently clear that mining companies, large & small, don’t want to pay any more in taxes because they know they’ll be skinned alive by shareholders. The Labor government wants and needs, from a purely political perspective, to prove the ability to create a budgetary surplus in three years time. Just in time for the election after what’s due this year. The conservative opposition sees a gift on a silver platter in this stoush, and have waded in boots & all, but without any clothes. Just as the government has miserably failed to sell their initiative, the opposition has failed to adequately prove the failings of the ‘elegant’ tax created by Dr. Ken Henry.
There are pros and cons, which I won’t go into here principally because no-one reading is likely to understand. Suffice to say that I favour the imposition of the tax, as created, with a caveat that treasury modelling be made public in regard to the activation threshold of 6%, as opposed to a level more generally favoured of 11%. Either way, the reality of mining industry ‘super’ profits cannot be denied. Profits which are not funnelled exclusive back into Australian society, but channelled back into further exploration and exploitation across the globe. My standpoint on this issue being that if mining conglomerates genuinely believed they were integral and beneficial to Australian society, places like Karratha, Meekatharra, Newman and Halls Creek wouldn’t have such imbalanced communities where basic housing is at a premium both in quantity, and quality.
More can be paid and more must be paid. The minerals belong to us and as long as the miners are adequately recompensed for their risk, the profits of their exploitation also belong to us.