That is a quote by those representing the multinationals' . You have to be fair rather than one eyed on this matter.
The relevant public interest quote in this article is:
"The pressure of the mining lobby: The price of access to billions of dollars of non-renewable natural resources is local employment and provisioning, but our governments continually allow industry to duck their obligations and no minister’s performance card would be marked highly on this issue.If industry did not want to do this, they should have said so and then when the agreements were struck, the government could have increased the royalty rate to compensate for it.But the industry did not and now governments should do their job and ensure these agreements are honoured in full.It is a fair question to ask why our governments are so weak on these critically important issues?The first answer is that the industry is a polished and strong lobbying force who competently apply pressure.
I have been on the receiving end of it and it is never pleasant, but it goes with the job.The second and major reason is that the flood of royalties has removed any political imperative for modernising the tax base in the resource industries, but the current claims provide legitimate leverage for government, meaning the time is right for a root and branch review aimed at modernising this industry’s contribution to the state of Western Australia."
And IMO that is the salient point and not the hip pocket position of the Multinationals' Lobby whose beneficiaries (86% of them) piss our profits against the wall in Wall St , City of London , Shanghai & the Ginza in Tokyo while our banks go overseas with cap in hand to borrow billions to finance your and my needs and that of the rest of the country. Just wait until we are downgraded post this "virus recession" and you'll see what Australia has to pay for bonds. ?
Before 1901 there were 10s of thousands of Aussies campaigning against our independance because these individuals ,although in the minority. were beneficiaries of the Pommy Colonial Regime,. It is similar now with the backers of the Multinationals; just a different modus operandi of Colonialism!
