No no, they are on the record as saying that they will one day have a plan for a broadband network, which will be totally awesome and way better than Labors, though they have no idea what it will be yet (apart from cheap)
Who is he? Kerry O'Brien is the host of the ABC's 7.30 report, notable because they routinely interview major political figures. And lately - apparently ever since he interviewed Obama - he is just not taking any crap.
Why is this? Did Obama impress him that much or piss him off that much?
Why is there no love for The Australian Democrats? Everyone says 'blah blah not a viable party blah blah Meg Lees GST' etc. Yes, understood, they lost their title of 'the third party that can actually influence things', but that's because people like YOU (yes, that's right YOU!) stopped voting for them. If you start voting for them again then there will again be a socially progressive, mostly economically sensible party around to have a voice. They ran candidates at the recent SA election.
"But!", I hear you say, "I only have one vote! What can I do?". Well, yep, you've only got one vote, that's how the system works, so if you use it you'll be effecting all the change you can. Good work.
Or hey, if the Liberal National Party stood candidates around here I'd probably vote for them. No, I certainly don't agree with all of their policies. But what does it matter, it's not like they're going to form government. What they would hopefully do is stop the current Australian madness of: "I'm a baby boomer and I don't like X! The government should ban it! BANHAMMER I SAY!" Ban burqas! Ban violent games! Ban junk food advertising! Ban financial markets! Ban profits above the weighted average cost of capital! (Well OK no-one is actually calling for that last one). Etc... Etc... I'm ranting.
Solvent on major parties: Well, is there really much difference? People get crazy over Abbott's Catholicism but I'm not convinced Rudd is any less a control-freak desirous of a Christian-right dominated Australia. It's just that he's not as overt in trying to bring it about.
Malcolm Turnbull had his head screwed on straight and the Liberals took fair aim and cut him down. I don't know why on Earth they couldn't get behind him.
I have more opinions but they're just that, opinions, and if discussion continues in this thread I may be back. Oh and hey, let's not get more wind farms in South Australia at least because our grid stability is seriously on it's way to funky town already kthnx.
Oh yeah and solar panels/feed-in tariffs, c'mon, they're a ridiculously expensive way to go about greenhouse gas abatement let's please have some more sensible solutions without all the "Oh noes its a market those aren't good for the birds and trees" paranoia.
Solvent on
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
There's been a lot of noise about it, but the companies have to post notices on the ASX before final decisions are made about these projects. Far as I'm aware, those are few and far between, if indeed any have happened at all, because unlike whining about taking their ball and bat and going home, such announcements do actually affect share prices, and you can't do sudden takebacks.
How would you view a project like Hope Downs 4? 2 1/2 years ago the economics of the project stacked up well enough for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to commit US$71M to undertake a full feasibility study for the mine and associated infrastructure, the study continued on throughout the GFC as the economics still stacked up. If the project was now not to proceed would that qualify as a loss of the 1,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of off-site jobs over 3 years that would have been involved in construction of the mine?
Secondly, a lot of those allegedly "disappearing" jobs already don't exist. The numbers largely come from mining companies' projections of future employment figures based on a best-case outcome from business-as-usual - in other words, they're making shit up.
It seems to me that the mining companies are just using the same methodology that the Government has been using to claim they saved so many thousand jobs during the GFC due to their stimulus measures. It seems a bit of a double standard to call bullshit on the miners' claims after the Government have established this as their preferred methodology.
And a good chunk of those jobs go to professionals from overseas anyway (and sometimes the less-skilled on temp work visas), so its not like most of them are jobs we were going to get near anyways. Unless you like driving trucks or cooking.
For Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue I can confidently state that they perform their engineering locally, in fact even Rio Tinto's Simandou project in Africa is being engineered in Perth. I will also add that Rio Tinto's procurement policies for West Australian projects include a local content provision that favours Australian suppliers and the use of Australian sourced materials over foreign suppliers.
Tallweirdo on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
According to the NBN Implementation Study, in order for the NBN to be a viable business it needs to be protected from fixed line competition. Essentially, by creating the Government owned NBN and protecting it from fixed line competition they are re-nationalising the national telecommunications network (with a promise to sell it off again in about 15 years), this is explicitly against the Liberal party's platform of privatising all services that can be provided on a commercial basis.
Tallweirdo on
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
Keeping vital equity under the control of the government can only really be a good thing in my book
Its been kept in check quite well by the ACCC, especially considering we gave one company a monopoly and forced them to compete with vastly smaller businesses.
How would you view a project like Hope Downs 4? 2 1/2 years ago the economics of the project stacked up well enough for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to commit US$71M to undertake a full feasibility study for the mine and associated infrastructure, the study continued on throughout the GFC as the economics still stacked up. If the project was now not to proceed would that qualify as a loss of the 1,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of off-site jobs over 3 years that would have been involved in construction of the mine?
The new tax is on mining profits, and reduces or removes the royalty taxes. The royalties apply to every ton of material removed from the ground, whereas a profitability tax only applies to non-expenses - i.e. once you start selling ore above your expenses. It's not going to sink any projects.
More importantly, from what I've gleaned it's also translating into a big tax write-down for unprofitable projects.
Yeah I think its been shown that the net is too important a means of transferring information to leave it in the hands of the private sector.
Political ideological wankery aside, some stuff is good for government, others for business. The Aussie telco industries have struck the weak point of our IT industry for massive damage.
Yeah I think its been shown that the net is too important a means of transferring information to leave it in the hands of the private sector.
Political ideological wankery aside, some stuff is good for government, others for business. The Aussie telco industries have struck the weak point of our IT industry for massive damage.
The thing which really annoys me is that there's a lot of people claiming that "if the private sector won't do it it's a waste of money", utterly ignoring the fact that the entire purpose of the government is to implement break-even or low ROI projects which are otherwise good for the country outside of immediate monetary returns.
is he trying to bring about an anti-healthcare vibe kinda thing here
Because Labour created it. No more, no less.
If Rudd was actually worried about Tony Abbot all he'd need to do would be put out a statement saying that Labour is against people drinking bleach and draino. The very next day Tony would be on the 7.30 report swigging it like it was lemonade.
If nothing else their no-policy anti-Labour platform is going to create some wonderful campaign ads.
"Kevin Rudd wants to build expensive National Broadband Infastructure to improve the nation's telecommunications"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Kevin Rudd wants to implement an Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Kevin Rudd wants to nationalise the public health care service to deliver a higher standard of health care"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Vote Tony Abbot, the can't do Prime Minister that Australia deserves."
I've been feeling a lot more upbeat lately regarding the Liberals anyway. Tony Abbott is happily sabotaging his ability to campaign on any basis which will have any kind of broad appeal. So long as he can't become PM, I'm pretty happy ultimately.
Holy shit I just watched the K Rudd video and it was perhaps the very first time I have heard him say anything that didn't screech 'oh god what do the most people want to hear'. Mad props
Also it's the first time I've actually seen Kerry's 'not allow politicians to dodge questions' tactic actually get results.
How would you view a project like Hope Downs 4? 2 1/2 years ago the economics of the project stacked up well enough for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to commit US$71M to undertake a full feasibility study for the mine and associated infrastructure, the study continued on throughout the GFC as the economics still stacked up. If the project was now not to proceed would that qualify as a loss of the 1,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of off-site jobs over 3 years that would have been involved in construction of the mine?
Is the project in any clear and present danger of being cancelled, or are you just scaremongering your little heart out? I'll take Option B!
It seems to me that the mining companies are just using the same methodology that the Government has been using to claim they saved so many thousand jobs during the GFC due to their stimulus measures. It seems a bit of a double standard to call bullshit on the miners' claims after the Government have established this as their preferred methodology.
So because other people have told the same lie, its not a lie anymore? WTF?
For Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue I can confidently state that they perform their engineering locally, in fact even Rio Tinto's Simandou project in Africa is being engineered in Perth. I will also add that Rio Tinto's procurement policies for West Australian projects include a local content provision that favours Australian suppliers and the use of Australian sourced materials over foreign suppliers.
Good to know, but there are still a shitload of mining and engineering positions in the Australian mining industry being filled by non-Australians, as is the case for a number of other industries.
I'm not seeing any arguments that mining companies shouldn't pay Australians a fair share of profit on the resources they own. Do you have any?
Is it this 'uncertainty' crap around the mining tax thats hurting the dollar? Because its dropping ridiculously fast against the Euro and the EU's economy is ridiculously poor compared to ours.
How would you view a project like Hope Downs 4? 2 1/2 years ago the economics of the project stacked up well enough for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to commit US$71M to undertake a full feasibility study for the mine and associated infrastructure, the study continued on throughout the GFC as the economics still stacked up. If the project was now not to proceed would that qualify as a loss of the 1,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of off-site jobs over 3 years that would have been involved in construction of the mine?
Is the project in any clear and present danger of being cancelled, or are you just scaremongering your little heart out? I'll take Option B!
It hasn't yet gone to Rio Tnto's investment committee who will make the final decision on whether it proceeds or not, unfortunately I can't tell how they will decide, for all I know they may decide to postpone the project purely for political reasons. Back to the hypothetical quesion I posed before you said I was scaremongering my little heart out, if they don't proceed would this qualify as the loss of the 1,000 jobs that would have otherwise been created in the absence of the RSPT?
It seems to me that the mining companies are just using the same methodology that the Government has been using to claim they saved so many thousand jobs during the GFC due to their stimulus measures. It seems a bit of a double standard to call bullshit on the miners' claims after the Government have established this as their preferred methodology.
So because other people have told the same lie, its not a lie anymore? WTF?
If the established methodology for determining future job gains or losses is to compare against predictions then how is it a lie to say that the number of future jobs has been decreased when the predictions decrease?
What is your prefered alternative for determining the success of employment programs if it isn't looking at the difference between the predictions?
For Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue I can confidently state that they perform their engineering locally, in fact even Rio Tinto's Simandou project in Africa is being engineered in Perth. I will also add that Rio Tinto's procurement policies for West Australian projects include a local content provision that favours Australian suppliers and the use of Australian sourced materials over foreign suppliers.
Good to know, but there are still a shitload of mining and engineering positions in the Australian mining industry being filled by non-Australians, as is the case for a number of other industries.
So why does the tax include those that do maintain the vast majority of their workforce in Australia? If the Government's main aim is to tax foreign profits why don't they make the tax proportional to the amount of foreign ownership instead of taxing all the mining companies equally?
I'm not seeing any arguments that mining companies shouldn't pay Australians a fair share of profit on the resources they own. Do you have any?
I won't argue that they shouldn't pay a fair share because I believe they should pay a fair share. I would like to see your arguments why 40% of all profits exceeding 6% in addition to the 30% (to be reduced to 28%) company tax they already pay represents a fair share and why this additional 'super profits tax' should only apply to mining companies and not any other industry.
In general the arguments against the RSPT I give credence to are:
1) On-shore resources belong to the States and Territories, not the Federal Government, and the States and Territories currently receive payment for the resources in the form of royalties. The West Australian Attorney General has indicated that he has advice that there are a number of areas in which the proposed RSPT will breach the Constitution. This could just be political posturing but I don't know enough about the detail of the laws to judge, any further information would be appreciated.
2) Mining companies fund future projects using cash flow and financing based on profits from existing projects. If you decrease their profits by ~30% you decrease their ability to self-finance future projects by a similar percentage (this is what leads to the predicted decrease in future jobs). If the companies want to maintain their projects on the same timetables they will have to seek equity (most likely from overseas) to fund them. The RSPT could increase the amount of foreign ownership of Australian resources.
3) The RSPT applies to existing projects on a compulsory basis. The Federal Government will retroactively take a 40% share in the super profits of on-going projects that they did not share in any of the risks of establishing.
4) There is a lack of clarity in what are deductable expenses for the purposes of the RSPT. The announcement document already excludes a number of expenses and is quite vague in determining what expenses are covered. If more than 6% of a company's expenses are not deductable the company will end up paying the 'Super Profit' tax before they actually make a profit.
Noteably, financing costs are excluded, if a company's financing costs exceed 6% of the value of their project they will begin paying the RSPT before they make a profit.
Tallweirdo on
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WarcryI'm getting my shit pushed in here!AustraliaRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
If they're so worried about the mining tax, there's an easy fix for that. Raise the export price.
If it's possible to end up paying the superprofits tax while being unprofitable, then that should be fixed, but I see no reason why we shouldn't aggressively tax profits which aren't expensed into future projects. If anything, that would encourage a more rapid turn around on the development of new mines, and thus, more jobs.
Coming from the other end of the spectrum as well, taxing the mining industry so we put a slightly break on their dominance in the Australia export sector would also be a good long term idea. It is fucking ridiculous that our chief exports are ore and agricultural products - we're a first world country with the export profile of a third world nation.
What I'd like to see is some more aggressive tax cuts for other industrial sectors - specifically high-tech industry like biotech, nanotech and semicondutors, to attract them here. Currently we invent a lot of awesome shit, and then it all goes to the US to be commercialized and gets made in Taiwan.
EDIT: The royalties system is also a regressive taxation scheme that favors big players over start ups. I also really couldn't give a fuck about states rights, and if WA wants to freak out about if they can go ahead and try seceding like they keep saying they will.
It hasn't yet gone to Rio Tnto's investment committee who will make the final decision on whether it proceeds or not, unfortunately I can't tell how they will decide, for all I know they may decide to postpone the project purely for political reasons. Back to the hypothetical quesion I posed before you said I was scaremongering my little heart out, if they don't proceed would this qualify as the loss of the 1,000 jobs that would have otherwise been created in the absence of the RSPT?
Maybe, but I'm not a big fan of mourning the loss of things that don't exist. So probably not. Even so, these companies aren't claiming that jobs that might otherwise exist maybe won't*, they're claiming that existing jobs will disappear. Its extremely poor conduct.
*if they don't get their way :rotate:
If the established methodology for determining future job gains or losses is to compare against predictions then how is it a lie to say that the number of future jobs has been decreased when the predictions decrease?
What is your prefered alternative for determining the success of employment programs if it isn't looking at the difference between the predictions?
They're not actually matching projections, though, and thus not actually comparable. They're just two similar lies.
So why does the tax include those that do maintain the vast majority of their workforce in Australia? If the Government's main aim is to tax foreign profits why don't they make the tax proportional to the amount of foreign ownership instead of taxing all the mining companies equally?
Because its not just about jobs for the locals; its about whether we all as citizens benefit appropriately from the sale of our nonrenewable resources.
I won't argue that they shouldn't pay a fair share because I believe they should pay a fair share. I would like to see your arguments why 40% of all profits exceeding 6% in addition to the 30% (to be reduced to 28%) company tax they already pay represents a fair share and why this additional 'super profits tax' should only apply to mining companies and not any other industry.
As I said above, they're extracting non-renewable resources. We get one chance to benefit, and one only. Also, we've gotten stuck with a disproportionate chunk of the cleanup costs historically, and that's not changing much regardless of environmental law. Anyways, my income tax is closer to 40% than I like to think about across the board, so I see no reason why the figures quoted are unreasonable. Especially since, as Elec pointed out last page, the restructure actually reduces the risk of exploring new projects. That's pretty danged pro-business.
In general the arguments against the RSPT I give credence to are:
1) On-shore resources belong to the States and Territories, not the Federal Government, and the States and Territories currently receive payment for the resources in the form of royalties. The West Australian Attorney General has indicated that he has advice that there are a number of areas in which the proposed RSPT will breach the Constitution. This could just be political posturing but I don't know enough about the detail of the laws to judge, any further information would be appreciated.
That's...worth thinking about, but our states aren't like, say, US states. They're not little subcountries banding together out of convenience, and haven't been since the days of colonialism. We're just not populous enough for that.
I'm actually not a big fan of the state level of government even though I work for them, and the only reason I see a role for them is that local government politics are so retarded that some kind of regional governmental level replacing the states and shires would probably be a disaster. I think Australian mining resources belong to Australians, full stop. And I'd rather all the extraction was state-owned a la Norway rather than outsourcing it to corporations, but we're stuck with that now and need to make the best of it.
2) Mining companies fund future projects using cash flow and financing based on profits from existing projects. If you decrease their profits by ~30% you decrease their ability to self-finance future projects by a similar percentage (this is what leads to the predicted decrease in future jobs). If the companies want to maintain their projects on the same timetables they will have to seek equity (most likely from overseas) to fund them. The RSPT could increase the amount of foreign ownership of Australian resources.
An adjustment period is fair enough - and some of the discussion I've seen today mentions the possibility of phasing this change in slowly to minimise the pain. That said, I don't think these companies are near as cash-strapped as this paragraph implies. I've been working with some recently, and my goodness they're kind of wasteful (bleeding cash) in the exploratory stages of a project.
3) The RSPT applies to existing projects on a compulsory basis. The Federal Government will retroactively take a 40% share in the super profits of on-going projects that they did not share in any of the risks of establishing.
That's not a will, that's a maybe. I'll bet you a shiny dollar that that part doesn't make it through to the final draft. But that aside, I'll cheerfully join in the hate for retroactive tax law. Its an evil idea.
4) There is a lack of clarity in what are deductable expenses for the purposes of the RSPT. The announcement document already excludes a number of expenses and is quite vague in determining what expenses are covered. If more than 6% of a company's expenses are not deductable the company will end up paying the 'Super Profit' tax before they actually make a profit.
Noteably, financing costs are excluded, if a company's financing costs exceed 6% of the value of their project they will begin paying the RSPT before they make a profit.
Again, this stuff is speculative, based on scoping documents. Its a point for negotiation, not an argument to scrap the whole idea of taxation change.
There's more stuff here, but I fundamentally reject the idea of poor-little-mining-companies. They're doing ok. They'll continue to do ok under a new taxation scheme. We have absolutely no chance of significantly impacting their profits in even the medium term, and anyone who's stupid enough to stomp off in a huff will be very quickly replaced by a more adaptive company.
I really wish something would happen to put Stephen Conroy out of politics.
I mean his entire defense of the internet filter seems largely centered on trying to accuse Google of doing worse...somehow. And you know, totally invading people's privacy! So you see, it's totally ok for the government do that anyway because really you should worry about Google more!
He's an uninformed, uneducated moron, and easily the worst thing the Labor party has in it at the moment. But of course the Liberals pretty much refuse to comment on it for fear of taking a side - although given their commitment to not funding anything at the moment, they would be a pretty safe way to see it not happen.
Sadly that would cost a lot of other things too.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited May 2010
From what I've been hearing, the Liberals are quite interested in reinstating Work Choices. That alone is awful.
I'm not entirely sure how the Liberals plan on doing anything with their current stated, utterly illogical goals. Lying about them I suspect is the answer, as Mr Abbott has indicated he is wont too.
I think mentioning workchoices i proof that Tony Abbott is completely mad. Why on earth would you resurrect such a hated policy just when people were starting to warm to you?
As far as I know he hasn't actually mentioned it, he's just said "workplace reform".
This has been interpreted as Work Choices 2.0, which, given the government he hails from is not a bad interpretation if he's not going to elaborate on policy.
Given he came up with the "Send the dole bludgers down the mines scheme" i would say Tony just isnt that bright. Although i did hear someone say that an incentive based scheme to get people to move to rural areas for fruit picking and the like has some possibilities, the growers are in need of workers, its lower skilled and the money is pretty good (i think).
bezerk bob on
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are. -- Colonel Adolphus Busch
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited May 2010
I'd guess the money for fruit picking would be awful, but if you have cheap housing and such it may not be too bad
Tony Abbott also wants to get rid of the dole for people under 25. The whole things the usual bullshit: pander to baby boomers who think we're all oh-so-spoiled and they lived in "hard times".
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Why is this? Did Obama impress him that much or piss him off that much?
I found it amusing when members of his own party down this way decided they'd rather defy Abbott's opposition to the NBN than commit election suicide.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
is he trying to bring about an anti-healthcare vibe kinda thing here
Why is there no love for The Australian Democrats? Everyone says 'blah blah not a viable party blah blah Meg Lees GST' etc. Yes, understood, they lost their title of 'the third party that can actually influence things', but that's because people like YOU (yes, that's right YOU!) stopped voting for them. If you start voting for them again then there will again be a socially progressive, mostly economically sensible party around to have a voice. They ran candidates at the recent SA election.
"But!", I hear you say, "I only have one vote! What can I do?". Well, yep, you've only got one vote, that's how the system works, so if you use it you'll be effecting all the change you can. Good work.
Or hey, if the Liberal National Party stood candidates around here I'd probably vote for them. No, I certainly don't agree with all of their policies. But what does it matter, it's not like they're going to form government. What they would hopefully do is stop the current Australian madness of: "I'm a baby boomer and I don't like X! The government should ban it! BANHAMMER I SAY!" Ban burqas! Ban violent games! Ban junk food advertising! Ban financial markets! Ban profits above the weighted average cost of capital! (Well OK no-one is actually calling for that last one). Etc... Etc... I'm ranting.
Solvent on major parties: Well, is there really much difference? People get crazy over Abbott's Catholicism but I'm not convinced Rudd is any less a control-freak desirous of a Christian-right dominated Australia. It's just that he's not as overt in trying to bring it about.
Malcolm Turnbull had his head screwed on straight and the Liberals took fair aim and cut him down. I don't know why on Earth they couldn't get behind him.
I have more opinions but they're just that, opinions, and if discussion continues in this thread I may be back. Oh and hey, let's not get more wind farms in South Australia at least because our grid stability is seriously on it's way to funky town already kthnx.
Oh yeah and solar panels/feed-in tariffs, c'mon, they're a ridiculously expensive way to go about greenhouse gas abatement let's please have some more sensible solutions without all the "Oh noes its a market those aren't good for the birds and trees" paranoia.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
How would you view a project like Hope Downs 4? 2 1/2 years ago the economics of the project stacked up well enough for Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting to commit US$71M to undertake a full feasibility study for the mine and associated infrastructure, the study continued on throughout the GFC as the economics still stacked up. If the project was now not to proceed would that qualify as a loss of the 1,000 on-site jobs and hundreds of off-site jobs over 3 years that would have been involved in construction of the mine?
It seems to me that the mining companies are just using the same methodology that the Government has been using to claim they saved so many thousand jobs during the GFC due to their stimulus measures. It seems a bit of a double standard to call bullshit on the miners' claims after the Government have established this as their preferred methodology.
For Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue I can confidently state that they perform their engineering locally, in fact even Rio Tinto's Simandou project in Africa is being engineered in Perth. I will also add that Rio Tinto's procurement policies for West Australian projects include a local content provision that favours Australian suppliers and the use of Australian sourced materials over foreign suppliers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10130346.stm
Because Labour created it. No more, no less.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
According to the NBN Implementation Study, in order for the NBN to be a viable business it needs to be protected from fixed line competition. Essentially, by creating the Government owned NBN and protecting it from fixed line competition they are re-nationalising the national telecommunications network (with a promise to sell it off again in about 15 years), this is explicitly against the Liberal party's platform of privatising all services that can be provided on a commercial basis.
some things should be government run
Don't be silly, of course we can entrust telecommunications infrastructure to the free mar-
Whoops.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
The new tax is on mining profits, and reduces or removes the royalty taxes. The royalties apply to every ton of material removed from the ground, whereas a profitability tax only applies to non-expenses - i.e. once you start selling ore above your expenses. It's not going to sink any projects.
More importantly, from what I've gleaned it's also translating into a big tax write-down for unprofitable projects.
Political ideological wankery aside, some stuff is good for government, others for business. The Aussie telco industries have struck the weak point of our IT industry for massive damage.
The thing which really annoys me is that there's a lot of people claiming that "if the private sector won't do it it's a waste of money", utterly ignoring the fact that the entire purpose of the government is to implement break-even or low ROI projects which are otherwise good for the country outside of immediate monetary returns.
If Rudd was actually worried about Tony Abbot all he'd need to do would be put out a statement saying that Labour is against people drinking bleach and draino. The very next day Tony would be on the 7.30 report swigging it like it was lemonade.
If nothing else their no-policy anti-Labour platform is going to create some wonderful campaign ads.
"Kevin Rudd wants to build expensive National Broadband Infastructure to improve the nation's telecommunications"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Kevin Rudd wants to implement an Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Kevin Rudd wants to nationalise the public health care service to deliver a higher standard of health care"
"Tony Abbot doesn't"
"Vote Tony Abbot, the can't do Prime Minister that Australia deserves."
Also it's the first time I've actually seen Kerry's 'not allow politicians to dodge questions' tactic actually get results.
https://medium.com/@alascii
So because other people have told the same lie, its not a lie anymore? WTF?
Good to know, but there are still a shitload of mining and engineering positions in the Australian mining industry being filled by non-Australians, as is the case for a number of other industries.
I'm not seeing any arguments that mining companies shouldn't pay Australians a fair share of profit on the resources they own. Do you have any?
no wait
DEY TOOK ER MINRALS!
https://medium.com/@alascii
If the established methodology for determining future job gains or losses is to compare against predictions then how is it a lie to say that the number of future jobs has been decreased when the predictions decrease?
What is your prefered alternative for determining the success of employment programs if it isn't looking at the difference between the predictions?
So why does the tax include those that do maintain the vast majority of their workforce in Australia? If the Government's main aim is to tax foreign profits why don't they make the tax proportional to the amount of foreign ownership instead of taxing all the mining companies equally?
I won't argue that they shouldn't pay a fair share because I believe they should pay a fair share. I would like to see your arguments why 40% of all profits exceeding 6% in addition to the 30% (to be reduced to 28%) company tax they already pay represents a fair share and why this additional 'super profits tax' should only apply to mining companies and not any other industry.
In general the arguments against the RSPT I give credence to are:
1) On-shore resources belong to the States and Territories, not the Federal Government, and the States and Territories currently receive payment for the resources in the form of royalties. The West Australian Attorney General has indicated that he has advice that there are a number of areas in which the proposed RSPT will breach the Constitution. This could just be political posturing but I don't know enough about the detail of the laws to judge, any further information would be appreciated.
2) Mining companies fund future projects using cash flow and financing based on profits from existing projects. If you decrease their profits by ~30% you decrease their ability to self-finance future projects by a similar percentage (this is what leads to the predicted decrease in future jobs). If the companies want to maintain their projects on the same timetables they will have to seek equity (most likely from overseas) to fund them. The RSPT could increase the amount of foreign ownership of Australian resources.
3) The RSPT applies to existing projects on a compulsory basis. The Federal Government will retroactively take a 40% share in the super profits of on-going projects that they did not share in any of the risks of establishing.
4) There is a lack of clarity in what are deductable expenses for the purposes of the RSPT. The announcement document already excludes a number of expenses and is quite vague in determining what expenses are covered. If more than 6% of a company's expenses are not deductable the company will end up paying the 'Super Profit' tax before they actually make a profit.
Noteably, financing costs are excluded, if a company's financing costs exceed 6% of the value of their project they will begin paying the RSPT before they make a profit.
Coming from the other end of the spectrum as well, taxing the mining industry so we put a slightly break on their dominance in the Australia export sector would also be a good long term idea. It is fucking ridiculous that our chief exports are ore and agricultural products - we're a first world country with the export profile of a third world nation.
What I'd like to see is some more aggressive tax cuts for other industrial sectors - specifically high-tech industry like biotech, nanotech and semicondutors, to attract them here. Currently we invent a lot of awesome shit, and then it all goes to the US to be commercialized and gets made in Taiwan.
EDIT: The royalties system is also a regressive taxation scheme that favors big players over start ups. I also really couldn't give a fuck about states rights, and if WA wants to freak out about if they can go ahead and try seceding like they keep saying they will.
Unless I missed it.
The dude should have been ousted for being absolutely awful at his job, not because he likes taking the road less traveled.
Heh. You'd have thought the transport minister would be all about alternative means of transportation, to stretch that metaphor really far.
*if they don't get their way :rotate:
They're not actually matching projections, though, and thus not actually comparable. They're just two similar lies.
Because its not just about jobs for the locals; its about whether we all as citizens benefit appropriately from the sale of our nonrenewable resources.
As I said above, they're extracting non-renewable resources. We get one chance to benefit, and one only. Also, we've gotten stuck with a disproportionate chunk of the cleanup costs historically, and that's not changing much regardless of environmental law. Anyways, my income tax is closer to 40% than I like to think about across the board, so I see no reason why the figures quoted are unreasonable. Especially since, as Elec pointed out last page, the restructure actually reduces the risk of exploring new projects. That's pretty danged pro-business.
That's...worth thinking about, but our states aren't like, say, US states. They're not little subcountries banding together out of convenience, and haven't been since the days of colonialism. We're just not populous enough for that.
I'm actually not a big fan of the state level of government even though I work for them, and the only reason I see a role for them is that local government politics are so retarded that some kind of regional governmental level replacing the states and shires would probably be a disaster. I think Australian mining resources belong to Australians, full stop. And I'd rather all the extraction was state-owned a la Norway rather than outsourcing it to corporations, but we're stuck with that now and need to make the best of it.
An adjustment period is fair enough - and some of the discussion I've seen today mentions the possibility of phasing this change in slowly to minimise the pain. That said, I don't think these companies are near as cash-strapped as this paragraph implies. I've been working with some recently, and my goodness they're kind of wasteful (bleeding cash) in the exploratory stages of a project.
That's not a will, that's a maybe. I'll bet you a shiny dollar that that part doesn't make it through to the final draft. But that aside, I'll cheerfully join in the hate for retroactive tax law. Its an evil idea.
Again, this stuff is speculative, based on scoping documents. Its a point for negotiation, not an argument to scrap the whole idea of taxation change.
There's more stuff here, but I fundamentally reject the idea of poor-little-mining-companies. They're doing ok. They'll continue to do ok under a new taxation scheme. We have absolutely no chance of significantly impacting their profits in even the medium term, and anyone who's stupid enough to stomp off in a huff will be very quickly replaced by a more adaptive company.
I mean his entire defense of the internet filter seems largely centered on trying to accuse Google of doing worse...somehow. And you know, totally invading people's privacy! So you see, it's totally ok for the government do that anyway because really you should worry about Google more!
He's an uninformed, uneducated moron, and easily the worst thing the Labor party has in it at the moment. But of course the Liberals pretty much refuse to comment on it for fear of taking a side - although given their commitment to not funding anything at the moment, they would be a pretty safe way to see it not happen.
Sadly that would cost a lot of other things too.
I'm not entirely sure how the Liberals plan on doing anything with their current stated, utterly illogical goals. Lying about them I suspect is the answer, as Mr Abbott has indicated he is wont too.
This has been interpreted as Work Choices 2.0, which, given the government he hails from is not a bad interpretation if he's not going to elaborate on policy.