Mining bosses have spent another week playing politics over the government’s Resource Super Profits Tax, with one magnate flying into Canberra on his private jet to cry poor at a debate and another announcing the ‘delay’ of a project that may still go ahead.
The government has stood firm over the tax change, which will see Australia recover some of the share of profits it has lost to mining companies during the commodity boom.
The AMWU supports the tax, and the increases to infractructure spending, skills training and superannuation it will fund.
“There is no question that the big multi-national miners do not want to pay a fairer share of tax, and are doing everything they can to make it appear that the sky will fall in,” said AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver.
As the miners stepped up their campaign with TV, radio and newspaper advertising, Minerology magnate Clive Palmer told the National Press Club in Canberra that the tax, which will replace royalties with a profits-based formula used commonly in other countries such as canada, was an ‘attack on the Australian constitution’.
A mining website set-up by the minerals council of Australia laughably claimed that Thailand (where political rebellion has shut down the country) and Somalia (with its well-known piracy problems) were now ‘safer’ investment environments than Australia.
The multi-million dollar scare campaign continued as trade figures from April showed a massive jump in mining earnings, with a 35 per jump in earnings from coal and a 32 per cent jump in earnings fro iron ore.
Several videos, including the one below, have made light of how unrealistic the mining industry's campaign has been.
Last week, a group of 20 leading academics and economists threw their weight behind the tax, saying the Australian people deserve a fair share of the profits being made from mining boom.
Since 1999, Australia’s share of mining profits made from our resources has fallen from 32% to only 14%.
“The reality is that the profits mining companies get from our national resources have soared due the boom in commodity prices, but the share of profits paid to Australia haven’t kept pace,” said Mr Oliver.
“The Resource Super Profits Tax will give Australians the share of profits we deserve from our natural resources, and help increase employment, production and further investment in the resource sector.”
Mr Oliver said workers could see the real reasons behind the scare campaign being run by mining bosses.
“We saw the same scare campaign being used by the oil companies 20 years ago to try and avoid paying a 40 per cent tax on petroleum profits. The government should not give in to this bullying,” he said.