There is a suggestion, - not yet confirmed, - that the new Chinese owners of $300m Cubbie Station, plan to export the cotton, raw, unprocessed, to China, thus circumventing any of the thousands of jobs in the cotton processing industry here.
Bad as that is, the Chinese owners will be paying no tax. Raw material in storage does not generate income tax until sold. So the Chinese can store it here, export it to China, process it there, and then sell it back to us as clothes and fabric.
The benefit to Australia would seem to be close to zero in terms of tax and jobs.
The Greens and Wayne Swan remain silent on the issue. And the previous Minister who would have overseen this, Ms Wong, is also silent.
