is anyone prepared to back a higher mining tax, page-11

I'm all for a mining tax. Unfortunately, Guillard got scared and succumbed to pressure from the big miners by waterng down the original Rudd plan. It makes perfect economic sense and already exist in the oil sector. The main reservation for me is that it will just become a shift of income from the less developed states to the national powerbases of Sydney and Melbourne. NSW and Victoria developed themselves on the back of resource booms. Developmentwise,the rest of Australia lags these big two states and that is where the money needs to be channelled. Being a realist, its pretty clear they Sydney and Melbourne are chomping at the bit to get their hands on more of this inflow of wealth.