KookeBoy This will cost Rudd heavily at the polls - Mining states like WA, QLD, SA and TAS that depend on the industry for employment will present an opportunity for massive swings to the Liberals. So this 40% "SuperTax" will probably never happen.
Rudd and Swann are wearing very thin as they try and big-note themselves with Health Care and Mining Tax reforms on the back of scandoulous and corupt spending on school building programs and the insulation fiasco. It is all together handing the opposition government on a plate.
The nature of the mining industry is so much more cyclical than all others and so much higher risk that it does not deserve to be slugged when they have a few bumper years. It is like wacking an extra tax on farmers when they have a bumper year - it is exactly the same, particularly for the smaller miners. Any "SuperTax" now or in the future should only cut in over about half a billion dollar profit. Tax concessions for exploration should be bumped up by the Commonwealth also.
