miner give 13 billion big thumbs up to labor , page-50

RM you are entitled to your opinion,but you probably live in some insignificant non mining part of the country.
Contrary to what you believe,perhaps the Premier of the largest mining state in this country has to say on the subject might be worth considering

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"A dogs dinner"
12.30pm Tuesday 10th August
Colin Barnett has renewed his attack on Julia Gillard's mining tax just 10 days out from the Federal election, labelling it an internally inconsistent "dog's dinner" that may not survive a constitutional challenge.

Speaking ahead of the resumption of State Parliament this morning, the Premier said no one he had spoken to in the mining industry believed the tax would become law in its current form.

"I think it's an absolute dog's dinner, the whole thing," Mr Barnett said.

"It is internally inconsistent, it's discriminatory from one product to another, it's even discriminatory within iron ore.

"It's just a shambles. So whatever Julia Gillard says, she can say she's reached agreement, but she has not reached agreement.

"She may have reached some agreement with BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata. But she has not reached agreement with the States, she has not reached agreement with the vast part of the mining industry. And what she has at the moment is so internally flawed that no-one - no-one - believes that's what will happen at the end of the day."

On her first trip to WA as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard gave the mining industry an ironclad guarantee that her Government, if re-elected, would not seek to expand the scope of the proposed minerals resource rent tax beyond iron ore and coal to other minerals.

Mr Barnett said WA would not lead a High Court challenge if the tax became law but the State would likely become involved if a private sector company did so.

"If the tax, when it's eventually drafted, relates to a surcharge of some sort on company tax, it's probably constitutionally correct," he said.

"If it starts getting down to the level of assessing the natural resource, it gets very close to a tax on the natural resource and (therefore) vulnerable to a High Court challenge.

"If someone is paying hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tax, it may well be in their interest to challenge it in the High Court. If that happened, the State would probably intervene."