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Aussies (and whoever's) thoughts and opinions on the matter are welcome here.

Personally, I'm in favour of it. As it replaces the outdated Royalties method with a Profit based tax, one that is more up to date and less obviously favourable to Mining companies. There are fears that this is solely a move by the Government to replace the deficent made by the stimulus and other things, but truth be told I think that this is a solid tax reform that will benefit Australia overall. In my opinion it's the best move this government has made so far and has pretty much swung my favour towards them. Until today I had Tony Abott as a man of integrity, much to my chagrin he is opposing the reform solely becuase the Mining billionaires are funding his campaign.

In simpler terms: "Roight, this things not a half bad idea, mates. The head honchos are doing something right for once, and if it ticks off the merchant yobs, more's the merrier. feth 'em."

You cannot propose such threads unless you are drinking a Fosters. Its Australian for beer you know.

Then the Government could use a bunch of that extra money so that Australia is more prepared when countries finally shift over from coal to something else.

Coal being our main export would really screw up our ecconomy once everything goes green.

VB: Worse than Fosters better than XXXX,. But *le gasp* this an underage (just) vulnerable child commenting on the various tastes of Alcohol.

Anyway, I put it to you that you cannot read such threads and comment unless doing the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

n0t_u wrote:Then the Government could use a bunch of that extra money so that Australia is more prepared when countries finally shift over from coal to something else.

Coal being our main export would really screw up our ecconomy once everything goes green.

Good one.

dogma wrote:You cannot propose such threads unless you are drinking a Fosters. Its Australian for beer you know.

Only if you are drinking Bud in return. Bud light to be precise (although regular bud is 'sex in a canoe' anyway*).

You can't even BUY Fosters in Australia - to my knowledge. I haven't seen it in many years.

Giving up coal will pretty much turn several areas into ghost towns (and finish off one that used to live on STEEL and COAL until they removed the mill).
Ripping off tourists can't ever pay as well.

Still, no coal would mean less crusty, smelly anti-everything protesters on their surfboards blockading the harbour which would be a good thing.




* Fethin' close to water (for those who do not know what this euphemism means).

chromedog wrote:

You can't even BUY Fosters in Australia - to my knowledge. I haven't seen it in many years.

Really ? Hmm.. story was, over here anyway, that part of Paul Hogan's payment for the adverts he did for the company was a lifetimes free supply of the stuff, gets a delivery to his home once a month, or so the story goes.

[/hijack]

@ the OP: Might be useful to throw a link or two people's way so they actually know what you're talking about.

EF- You have got to be kidding.

The tax may be helpful when the economy is booming, but what happens when a bust hits (and they always do) and the taxpayer is subsidising mining failures (losses) to the tune of 40%, when that money should be used for, like you know, spending on the taxpayers!
For example BHP canned a 2 billion dollar project a couple years back as it was losing money. So we would have been handing 800 million over to them.
There is no way in the world any sane tax payer would be OK with that.

6% is a 'superprofit'? You have to be joking. My shares portfolio is more successful than that and we are still in the global financial crisis. Way too low. 20%- Yeah, sure, no problems. But 6% is only 1% above govt bond issue and you wouldn't urinate on them if they were on firee, why because almost every other way to make money is better than a govt bond yield, except in terms of security.

Abbot and anyone with half a brain (Two thirds of Australians and over 87% of Queenslanders and WAers apparently) have been against this as they have seen how it has ripped the guts out of the mining stocks, the aussie dollar (as of friday, comparatively we were 16% lower than comparable western monetary values that had dropped due to Greece's problems, they had all gone up, we kept going down after the super profits tax was announced). It is starting to cause job losses in the mining communities.

Of course it is a money grab to try and get us back to surplus. These clowns managed to waste 5.2 BILLION on a 16 billion dollar school hall project and over 800 million on a 2.4 billion dollar insulation scheme. Ken Henry and Treasury set up analysis assuming that there would be no change to soverign risk status (stupid to begin with, just plain clown shoes now investors and mining companies are pulling out) Toolboy Henry said at senate estimates that it would make no difference if the tax was 40 or 90%. Sorry but if I get taxed at 90% I may as well be on the dole.

Sure the minerals are a resource that once removed is gone, never to be taxed again. BUT a strong mining sector kept us going through the GFC. They pay company taxes and large state based royalties, they employ hundreds and thousands of very, very well paid staff (who all pay tax), flow on to contractors and servise industries such as accountants, catering etc (who all pay tax), and lift share prices to pay dividends to people who own shares (who have to pay tax on that).

Finally when The Canadians, Brazillians, Zambians, South Africans are all saying that this is the best thing to happen to their mining industries in 10 years it has to be concerning.
The Canadians tried it IIRC 10 or 15 years ago and had to scrap it because it crippled investment.

Fingers crossed Rudd will be gone soon. The guy couldn't organise a sausage at a BBQ.

As you may surmise from my post.... I am against the tax.

I regret voting for Rudd although that was because of the useless premier we got stuck with firstly. Yet slowly became more disapointed over time. Abbot is not much better though...

Funny though as the first major election I voted for is so disappointing, I can see why we're forced to vote now. If they didn't enforce it, no one would vote

I will never vote abbott.. rudd will probably get my vote again cause I'm too scared of what abbott will do.. plus he's plain unlikeable. (all I really know about politics is from Good news week, so Im your average voter no?)

As for the mining tax, its the same as cigarettes.. its supposed to reduce mining right? right? haha..

My poor cigarettes..

I do think australia needs to stop relying on mining and develop something else.. dunno what they'd do though.


Also even though it hurts our economy terribly (I guess), I'm not really against it.. probably because I have no idea. But on the surface it looks nice, less mining and taxing big business warms my heart, plus all those well paid mining guys who laugh at my crappy wage will be out of some money or job (anecdotal but they were rude)..

Poor old rudd makes so many mistakes..

internet filter

Mining tax

Dropping some bill or constitution to put some of our assumed rights into law. (It was discussed on the discussion of the internet filter on ABC but I can't remember precisely)

cigarette tax (The tax goes up every 6 months anyway are you trying to create a black market?)

Qld getting some chip in the drivers licence (not rudd but pisses me off)

Something about insulation.. that ballz up.

But really abbott would do all these things and more.. So its the devil you know.

I wish I could vote for the status quo party.. who would stop with the censorship and new intiatives and just ride this country till the wheels fall off.. I'd vote for that.

Here are a few links for further info as reds8n suggested.
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/super-tax-can8217t-work-in-reality-forrest
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6410MY20100502
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/mining-tax-will-kill-industry/story-e6frg9df-1225858115997

Shaman you KNOW that Rudd is a control freak who is absolutely hopeless at formulating plans, selling them to the people and then implementing them in a timely, cost effective manner that doesn't end up with dead people.


You want less mining? The part of the economy that has kept us afloat?


Abbot will not allow the mining tax, he will dump the censorship of the net, he will stop the NBN (the 43 billion dollar white elephant that is projected to never, ever make its money back), he has to fix the insulation debacle (after 6 months the govt hasn't acctually employed and inspectors or repairers), he wants longer maternity leave.
I can't say about chips in lisences (not his area) or the cigarette tax.

But giving your vote to the loser you know is I guess justifiable, in a bizzaro worl sort of way.

Labor is definitely not getting my vote this time. They have stuffed things up way too much in such a short time.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Personally, I'm in favour of it. As it replaces the outdated Royalties method with a Profit based tax, one that is more up to date and less obviously favourable to Mining companies.

Thing is, iron ore, coal, or whatever is a thing in the ground that we the people own. A royalties tax represents the price of our asset, the price we’re selling it to the mining companies for. It’s a simple and direct scheme, but unfortunately it’s a source of revenue that the State’s own, and that doesn’t suit Rudd’s Federalist drive.

Instead we get a profits based tax, which will presumably let a company run a mine badly without any additional charge, then hit a company up for running a mine well.

Until today I had Tony Abott as a man of integrity, much to my chagrin he is opposing the reform solely becuase the Mining billionaires are funding his campaign.

Sbuh?! He’s an overt political opportunist, saying whatever will score votes today. Look at his approach to climate change – he supported ETS when it was part of Howard’s platform, supported it when Turnbull was in charge of the Liberals, then when the numbers turned and he could take over the party he suddenly rejected ETS to announce himself as ETS free alternative to Turnbull. He then released his own take on controlling emissions – a transparently stupid, unworkable policy that only served to give him a chance to claim that he had a policy for emissions control and that it wasn’t an ETS (his big issue was that is was a tax, so his policy was just a list of expenditure items… but at the same time the guy is complaining about the deficit as a tax on future generations… which apparently his own deficit funded emissions scheme wouldn’t be… what a jackhole).

dogma wrote:You cannot propose such threads unless you are drinking a Fosters. Its Australian for beer you know.

Only time I’ve ever seen Fosters was when I was in Europe.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

6% is a 'superprofit'? You have to be joking. My shares portfolio is more successful than that and we are still in the global financial crisis. Way too low. 20%- Yeah, sure, no problems. But 6% is only 1% above govt bond issue and you wouldn't urinate on them if they were on firee, why because almost every other way to make money is better than a govt bond yield, except in terms of security.

The bigger issue is 6% of what? The share price? Its set by expectations of returns, adjusted for risk. Considered that way profit isn’t a measure of efficiency, it’s a measure of expected return and expected risk.

6% of the capital invested? With the level of subjectivity in accounting, I could give you 1,000 different profit figures and 1,000 different capital bases for a small mining operation, let alone a large operation of any complexity.

Either way, it basically amounts to a progressive taxation scheme for companies, it’s a very strange and likely unworkable scheme.

Toolboy Henry said at senate estimates that it would make no difference if the tax was 40 or 90%. Sorry but if I get taxed at 90% I may as well be on the dole.

Henry is well regarded and extremely astute. It’s a shame his better reform suggestions weren’t accepted (reforming the rental market tax dodge – which really screws with housing prices). I disagree with him on this issue, but think that kind of name calling is unnecessary. It’s one thing to call politicians, but it’s just kind of crude to use it on career bureaucrats.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

Abbot will not allow the mining tax, he will dump the censorship of the net, he will stop the NBN (the 43 billion dollar white elephant that is projected to never, ever make its money back), he has to fix the insulation debacle (after 6 months the govt hasn't acctually employed and inspectors or repairers), he wants longer maternity leave.
I can't say about chips in lisences (not his area) or the cigarette tax.

But giving your vote to the loser you know is I guess justifiable, in a bizzaro worl sort of way.

Labor is definitely not getting my vote this time. They have stuffed things up way too much in such a short time.

From what I remember of yester year they always stuff things up, we just live with it. It feels like when Beasly was running.. he was so unimpressive and so unappealing that mr sheen won over and over again. Abbott comes across like a scumbag car salesman..

Also the major issue mining tax.. I just don't care. See because its clever it targets people I dont like, and appears to not affect me at all. And they must have some reason for doing it. Will Australia completely fall apart if it gets through.. I doubt it.

He(Rudd) was advised by his Advisors this will lose him the next Election, for sure!!!!!!!!!

The Public Speaking Market is far more Lucrative $$$'s wise.

What a pair of Fething Clown Shoes.

"Cigarette Tax to reduce Smoking, But Mining Super Tax won't affect the Mining Industry/Partners"

Pinhead. And I actually had high hopes for him.

And Shaman- yeah, Butterfly effect Bro- it will eventually affect us all :(

sebster wrote:Thing is, iron ore, coal, or whatever is a thing in the ground that we the people own. A royalties tax represents the price of our asset, the price we’re selling it to the mining companies for. It’s a simple and direct scheme, but unfortunately it’s a source of revenue that the State’s own, and that doesn’t suit Rudd’s Federalist drive.

Instead we get a profits based tax, which will presumably let a company run a mine badly without any additional charge, then hit a company up for running a mine well.

Yeah, I like the idea in theory (taxing rocks puts less burden on labor) but the way it's being implemented doesn't seem to make much sense (economically). It's mostly a constitutional thing though, right?

Sbuh?! He’s an overt political opportunist, saying whatever will score votes today. Look at his approach to climate change – he supported ETS when it was part of Howard’s platform, supported it when Turnbull was in charge of the Liberals, then when the numbers turned and he could take over the party he suddenly rejected ETS to announce himself as ETS free alternative to Turnbull. He then released his own take on controlling emissions – a transparently stupid, unworkable policy that only served to give him a chance to claim that he had a policy for emissions control and that it wasn’t an ETS (his big issue was that is was a tax, so his policy was just a list of expenditure items… but at the same time the guy is complaining about the deficit as a tax on future generations… which apparently his own deficit funded emissions scheme wouldn’t be… what a jackhole).

Jesus, I hope that guy doesn't get elected.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Yeah, I like the idea in theory (taxing rocks puts less burden on labor) but the way it's being implemented doesn't seem to make much sense (economically). It's mostly a constitutional thing though, right?

Pretty much, a royalty tax goes to the states, the federal government collects company tax. This government is driving to have more and more controlled at the Federal level, and so it needs more funding sources.

Jesus, I hope that guy doesn't get elected.

Unfortunately the guy in office has blown his last three or four policy initiatives, and his roof insulation scheme was so badly handled that people died. We may end up going for the amoral political opportunist with the (not so) hidden religious ultra-conservatism instead.

It's a shame, because there's actually a bit of talent among the front benches of both parties, it's just that the two leaders are complete nobs.