The CO2 tax is mainly an economic risk which cascades into a sovereign risk. We are deliberately, at a higher rate and well before other countries (and we are presuming they will follow), taxing the one major advantage Australia has over most of the world which is cheap, plentiful and reliable energy.
The mining tax is both an economic risk and a sovereign risk. To develop a mine costs hundreds of millions of dollars. A large mine can cost several billion dollars.
To make those sorts of investments you have to be as certain as you can of the costs involved, and these include the royalties and other taxes.
It has taken several years but you now have a successful mine operating and then the Government comes in and says we want to increase the tax. You have now increased the sovereign risk of working in that country. And if the Government was happy to increase the tax once, what stops it from doing it again?
You sow doubt into the minds of the mining companies and investors. They start looking elsewhere.
You decrease the potential profit of a company and/or mine you increase the risk of doing business in that country since your margin of safety has got that much tighter.
If you have a Government with a propensity for increasing the taxes of companies and mines you increase the sovereign risk of doing business in that country.
This is not a business-friendly government, and that is well-known both here and overseas.
