article re marampa, can you help?, page-15

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Lormac. It just isn't necessary to decimate the best and most beautiful places in the country to be able to reap the benefits mining has delivered during the boom and beyond. Mining Stradbroke Island, for example, a beautiful place on the doorstep of Brisbane is absolute madness on a grand scale.

Someone mentioned that Stradbroke sets a terrible precedent typical of a Labor government. Mining under long term Labor governments in WA, QLD and NSW has rocketed ahead for years and in the case of QLD & NSW for much more than a decade. Clearly such claims are a complete nonsense.

Labor in NSW should have been royally turfed out for a million reasons over the last four years. Being unfriendly to mining wasn't one of them.

PP, you need to educate yourself regarding sovereign risk and what the term means. Basically it refers to the government of a country defaulting on it's debts. Google sovereign risk and you'll soon see you're way of the mark. On sovereign risk, Australia has pretty much the strongest economy in the developed world and pretty much the lowest debt. Indeed a tiny fraction of the rest. Miniscule.

Although the mining tax has nothing to do with sovereign risk, it is also a nonsense to think it will savage the industry. Both current and future earniings are factored into share prices. The big money is acutely aware of this. If you throw up a chart of the mining bell weathers of BHP and RIO, and compare them to the all ords, it's clear that the market met the mining tax with a collective yawn. Follow the money. It isn't even vaguely concerned. Naturally it was met from the industry with warnings of armageedon. You can't blame for that. We pay them to maximise profits and they were doing their job. However, if you believe the ads which cost about 20m out of petty cash, you'd probably believe that wearing Lynx deodorant will have you fighting off gorgeous blondes.

Peter