My opinion has ebbed and flowed this week on whether this is a good idea or not. I'm all for Aussie mining to benefit Aussies but is tax the only way that we benefit. Much of this tax is going to be distributed to super funds but the miners already pay a lot of dividends to Aussie super funds so this seems to be complicating what is happening already.

Personally, I don't think Rudd has the political capital to make it happen. Too many backflips and debacles and he is way too sensitive to the opinion polls to stick with something that might get very unpopoular once the miners drop $50 million into an ad campaign to get rid of him. I thought Howard was past his used by date and the Liberal party was pretty gutless in not tapping him on the shoulder at the 10 year mark and giving Costello a go. They deserved what they got in 2007. But Rudd is just completely out of control and is too wedded to the daily spin cycle to be trusted with long term decision making or implementation. I dislike Abbott, but at least I know in advance what I'm going to get. We might have to have three years of his rubbish before Gillard gets a go. But I doubt very much that the miners tax will ever make it to the floor of the parliament.

I wonder if an ALP-Greens coalition is on the cards by year's end. If so it may be able to get tough legislation through even when Rudd gets cold feet. However this hasn't happened yet in Tasmania with a newly promoted Greens MP abandoning his self-drive Prius in favour of a chauffeur driven Statesman as befits a Minister.

We need to remember that iron ore exported from WA generates a large tonnage of CO2, possibly meeting up with NSW or Qld coking coal in northern hemisphere steel mills. Iron ore seems unlikely to run out anytime soon but Australia is certainly complicit in offshore GHGs. Therefore the resources tax could be regarded as a carbon tax by proxy.

I suspect Sen. Joyce will soon point out that Chinese owned mines can transfer out minerals at an artificially low price, thereby avoiding 'super profits'. The Chinese get the minerals and the jobs and we get holes in the ground.

If in fact other countries can fill the gap then we have at least conserved the resource for a later day. I can't say if the 40% is right but the principle seems sound. I suspect a watered down form will get through the next parliament whatever parties are in power.

The underlying assumption in the fear that investment will be curtailed is that Growth is Good. (Or is that Greed is Good?)

Slowing down will give us a bit more wriggle room with regard to climate change and peak oil.

So I am in favor of a huge tax.
A side benefit is that I won't have to pay so much for the bailouts.

Opinion warning! I think that the tax office knows just how much spare cash Joe Punter has, and takes it off him to ensure he has to haul his sorry carcase off to work on Monday morning.

Therefore the bailouts/"quantitative easing" cannot be squeezed out of the taxpayer, and must come from the only real money in town. The miners. Go Kev.

A rent tax does have solid economic credentials. Non renewable resources production should be taxed, with the proceeds hypothecated to the creation of capital assets that "replace" the non renewable resources over the period they are extracted. That is the theory. Even if it was watered down to "infrastructure" - say a new national high speed rail network, or a new national smart grid and intensive wind farm construction or something else more or equally worthy it may be justified. I bet all the money will just go into the current account to be spent on whatever wacky scheme comes next (naturally based on focus group wish lists).

I never was all that enamoured with KRudd. All the deceit of Blair but none of the charm. Unacceptable as he is, Abbott is so much worse. Why does our politics have to be a race for the bottom? It is Green for me and was last election too. A pox on both their houses. As I read somewhere else they are both turds. Just different shades of brown.

Ayan Rand, turn in your grave.
You had me sucked in there for a while.
But I don't take advice from people who smoke.

Should I weep for Likkle Ikkle because he will not be twice as rich as he is now?
Starvation would do him the world of good.
There is no danger of Likkle Ikkle putting all this wealth to good use.

Leave it in the ground.
The kids can have it.

Good article in The Age pointing out the enormous subsidies and tax credits the mining industry gets, worth some $4-$5 billion annually. One particularly interesting piece of information,

"Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that, while most industries have become more energy efficient over the past three decades, the mining industry has become less so. It takes twice the energy to get a dollar's worth of minerals out of the ground today as it did 30 years ago."

Though the mining industry gets to claim back the fuel excise, they still have to pay for the fuel itself, so presumably they're not burning it for the hell of it. More energy for a dollar's worth of resource... sounds like they're working on poorer and harder to extract ores... peak minerals?

As soon as the time comes to collect this planned tax, the bottom will have fallen out of mineral prices.

In view of this, it is rather ironic to watch Rudd & Co. planning grandiose current and recurring expenditure based upon something that simply will not be there.

In order to understand this latest wheeze, it is necessary of to put it into the context of doing anything to try to prevent the property market from crashing. Wealth-creation and employment should be taxed directly or indirectly to the greatest extent possible - but not property speculation.

Boy, have I seem this bad movie repeatedly elsewhere!