Gooday Dust, The left side of politics , whether Labor or The Greens, has a problem selling the RSPT & the CO2 tax to the electorate and Tony Abbott realises this. All he has to do is sit put until the next election and the Left side of politics will vote themselves out. It came within a whisker of that at the last election.
The plethora of taxes,excises,royalties & GST is so confusing at present and to try to explain the RSPT & the CO2 tax to the average stiff is virtually impossible. Just have a go yourself & I wish you luck. If you can't explain it then how do you expect the public to vote for it.
Before embarking on these new taxes, Labor ought to have cleared the decks of all other taxes, royalties & charges with the exception of company tax & GST. Just have a look at the current State mineral royalties' regime at present. In WA, for example there's a dogs dinner of deals on iron ore which would take the High court to sort out and some range back to the early 1960s when Lang Hancock and others did deals with the government of the day that would make any horse trader proud, and, dont laugh, Rio & PHP are still laughing all the way to the bank!
It would be then a simple matter of reformulating the States' royalty regimes into a federal resource tax. May I suggest that the GST exemption that resource enjoy at present is removed. This would simply kill two birds at the one stone; it would(a) collect an extra $10 billion a year from only coal, iron ore & gas (Annual exports of these 3 are about $100 billion)& (b) guarantee redistribution fairly to the states as per the rest of the GST. If that's not enough then taylor the GST applicable to export miners to suit the "crime". This would also avert the two speed economy and, watch my lips, no new tax.
The CO2 tax, while it may be needed later on, ought not to be an issue until our major trading partners, China,USA Japan & Korea have their CO2 trading programs up and ready to go. What do we think we are? a very small tail trying to wag an .... elephant! The average Aussie cannot afford to pay CO2 surcharge and nobody trusts the Federal Government whether they be Left or Right to redistribute the CO2 tax fairly.
The winging that Labor got at the last election will be completed next time around if the Labor aparachy dont sit back and think before they spruik. Do the political brains not realise that the electorate almost said no last time!
Cheers Moorookamick PS: (Moorookamick is not attached to any political party but he is simply afraid that politicians in the persuit of their own agenda may sell Australia down the drain).
It has cost miners alot of loot to get the sweetheart deals that they have now, so in the interests of a fair go for all, this Labor/Green government ought to ban political donations so that we can all contribute fairly and equitably to our own political system. We dont run our social welfare system on big business or trade union donations so why should we run our political system that way? MM.
