Suck it up, Gina

To anyone out there who looks forward to reading about what irritates me, I apologise for the long time between blogs. In my defence, I have actually been on holiday in the 3rd world (US and Mexico) and on my return for some reason I got addicted to Ancestry.com. I knew however it was time to stop when I found out: (a) I am partly descended from a line of French folk who bred like rabbits back in the 1700s; and (b) I had a great uncle who was an alcoholic politician and wound up topping himself at age 44. Further investigations may have led to an even more awful discovery, such as finding out that some long-lost relative came from New Zealand. As a result I am leaving that Pandora's box closed for now and focussing instead my other hobby of complaining.

There has been a lot of ordinary policy put forward by the Labor government since Kevin Rudd went off the rails in 2009, but one that I thought at the time wasn't a bad idea was the concept of a mining "super profit" tax. Of course, the delivery of the policy was a train wreck and Rudd wound up paying the ultimate price for that and a number of other debacles. However, the idea that mining companies who were enjoying the benefits of a once in a century boom ought to be sharing that largesse with the rest of us didn't seem like such a bad idea in principle.

In the last 3 weeks or so, I've read a number of articles in the paper featuring morbidly obese mining magnates and after that, I am completely convinced. The mining tax is a great idea, and may it pass through Parliament with all speed. In fact, may it even be doubled or tripled. These odious fatties can clearly afford to pay it, and unless we start taxing them soon, they will keep getting fatter and richer devouring our precious resources while the rest of us battle to keep our heads above water dealing with the pointy end of the two speed economy.

The first of these articles featured the ebullient Clive Palmer, who couldn't help crowing to all and sundry about how he had put one over BHP when he purchased a nickel plant from them. In fact, verbatim, this is what he said:
"It has been a great buy. Thanks very much to BHP. I've really enjoyed this. It provides me with about $US250 million of beer money a year. That's why I've got larger and fatter, thanks to BHP."
I don't know why Palmer would think getting larger and fatter is a good thing when he already resembles Mr Creosote from the "Meaning of Life", but then coal magnates are an odd breed.

Another featured the highly litigious and equally corpulent Gina Rinehart, someone who is never shy about going feral on things that might stop her current $10 billion cash pile reaching $30 billion. In what must rank as one of the biggest non-sequiturs in the whole mining tax debate, she declared that the Pilbara would be facing labour shortages of up to 450,000 in the next decade and then in the same breath announced how the mining tax and the carbon tax would drive away investment in the region. Right - so a boom so large that it needs more people than live in Canberra to service it is going to be shut down by a piddling tax on "super" profits. Of course, that poor excuse for a toilet roll "the Australian" completely failed to see the innate absurdity of her statements and duly reported her other wish-list items such as tax concessions for mine workers and government-funded infrastructure in the region.

Now when I have a crack at these people, don't think for a minute that I am doing a Bob Brown and advocating a tax on anything that can either be dug up or which lets off gas. Nor am I taking aim at one of the great things about our capitalist system, namely that anyone who has a level of intelligence and is prepared to work hard to achieve their goals can become very wealthy and very successful in this country. However I do think that both the current circumstances of the economy and the special case that large mining companies represent means that they ought to be making a greater contribution to the public purse than what they currently do. Here's why.

First, as anyone who lives in Sydney will tell you, the 2 speed economy is a bleak reality. While Rinehart counts her billions and throws daggers at the government from her compound in Perth, people who work on the east coast are continuing to lose their jobs at an alarming rate. The finance industry is taking a pounding from the constant bad news out of Europe, and while people are unlikely to shed a tear over a lot of investment bankers being made redundant, it does paint a picture of two wildly disparate sets of circumstances as normally the finance sector would march to the same beat as the mining sector. Some square up is desperately needed so that the sectors of the economy that employ most of the workers (such as retail and tourism) can have a fighting chance while the rest of the developed world works through its issues.

Secondly, it is not as though mining magnates make their vast fortunes out of inventing something which either is devilishly clever (such as the microchip or Google Maps), which doesn't involve the permanent depletion of wealth, or which doesn't require vast amounts of public investment. Instead they make their money by getting their mitts on a lucrative ore seam via a mining lease and then asking the government to set up port and rail infrastructure so they can dig the gear up and ship it off overseas. Excuse me for oversimplifying things, but shouldn't the starting point be that this stuff in the ground is the birthright of all Australians, not just the few who strike it lucky? Again, I don't begrudge mining companies making a profit but given we aren't going to see all this iron ore and coal again, I would like some of the sale proceeds to stay in the country for everyone to enjoy.

Thirdly, while Gina can bang on all she likes about the Pilbara needing 450,000 workers, the simple reality is that the mining industry, while growing strongly relative to other sectors, employs a very small part of the Australian workforce. For example, a quick look at the ABS figures from last August show total employment in mining to be only 193,000, compared with over a million in health and retail and almost the same in construction and tourism. Therefore, if you were the government looking for "bang for your buck" in terms of stimulating jobs growth, why wouldn't you take steps to bolster those industries who are actually going to hire people? The fact that some mining companies are now experimenting with driverless trucks, presumably in a bid to save money, should show the rhetoric coming out of the mining lobby about them being all for job generation for exactly what it is - a load of camel droppings.

So to the Ginas and Clives of this world, I say well done on amassing your fortunes, it takes a lot of chutzpah to so audaciously fleece the wealth of the country from right under our noses. However, a word of caution: don't go complaining too loud about the mining tax or gloating too publicly about how rich you are. If enough of your fellow Australians start finding your carry on as irritating as I do, then you might run the risk that the idea of a mining tax actually becomes popular. And if that happens, where would you be? Not even Tony Abbott would be dumb enough to revoke a popular policy and you would be stuck with this heinous tax forever.

As a result, my parting words of advice concerning the mining tax are: suck it up. And more generally, for heaven's sake, please just shut up.