The 51% Indonesian ownership of resource projects has not done that country any harm yet and I believe that Aussies mining people are better educated and more experienced than Indonesians.
PS: You obviously did not read the next post # 1661 which indicates that Australian mining returns 37% profit , manufacturing 6% & retail 4%. A MRRT which takes 10% of mining profit still leaves 27% profit with the miners which is nearly 7 times retail profits !
As an Australian, smithy9, I find it incredable that you accept the 83% foreign ownership of our resources and profits by these foreign owned miners 7 times that of your average Aussie retailer.
Perhaps we should have heeded Gough Whitlam when he said in 1972 that we should attempt to buy back the farm.
With Chinese investment in our Iron Ore and Coal resources increasing and Tony Abbott lifting the FIRB benchmark from $300 mil to a lazy $Trillion to accommodate them, the remaining 17% has about a snowballs hope in hell of remaining Australian.
And finally, dont kid yourself, multinationals rarely pay 30% tax on Australian profits and companies such as Google and Gloria Jean are just the tip of the iceberg. Even our good Japanese Corporate citizen, Toyota was fined $247 million by the ATO in 2010-11for not meeting its Aussie Tax obligations.
This is why tax havens exist.
And finally over the past 100 years we have gone to the four corners of the world to fight other's wars yet we can't see that the liberties we fought for are been eroded via foreign ownership by stealth. Just wait until the Chinese stitch up a free trade deal with us and then you'll see what I mean. They already want to take in Chinese workers for their Aussie resource projects. The Chinese model is working in Africa with Chinese Capital, Chinese machinery and equipment and Chinese labour.
Cheers moorookamick
PS: You must be in WA with the 12% landowner tax !
