SKUL,You bring up some very interesting points. In order for...

SKUL,
You bring up some very interesting points. In order for your argument to carry any weight it is important that it is based on facts, rather than hyperbole.

I agree that Australians have always made their own luck. They have had to because successive conservative governments of the 1950s & 1960s (both state and federal) lacked imagination and simply saw Australia as a market garden and a mine to serve Britain and the US.

Costello missed a golden opportunity to leverage the rivers of gold flowing from China and maximise the return from our resources. Just like Bjelke Petersen, former Qld premier who gave away the coal in Moura to the Japanese at 5c per ton.

To call the government "socialist" is nonsense. There is little difference in philosophy between the two sides. They are just two brands like Coke and Pepsi fighting for market share. They see the voting public as their "market", rather than their constituents for whom they owe their political existence.

Let's look at some facts on the mining issue. The miners currently are saddled with an inequitable royalty regime that they have been pleading with the government to be replaced by a much more equitable tax. The Henry review, consisting of a small army of economists, has crafted what the experts have described as a "very elegant tax" to replace the royalty scheme. The Rudd government didn't design it. If the Liberal party was in power, they would have been given the same advice and I am sure they would have accepted it.

Compare this to Abbot's proposal to increase company tax on ALL companies to provide maternity leave... And you call the current government socialist? Daahh!

Some of the large miners are putting on a bit of a carry-on for political reasons. They are being asked to carry their fair share and they don't particularly like it. What they will be paying for, is for the privilege of being able to sell the minerals that belong to ALL Australians. Why are you so enamoured to the big miners? What do they do for you?

The petroleum industry got this kind of tax regime 20 years ago and they are still flourishing. Look at the big gas deal that has just been done under that tax regime!

If you had a money tree in your back yard, wouldn't you want a slice of the action if a corporation wanted to harvest the money and put it on the market? Get real! These resources belong to ALL Australians, not to the miners.

Smaller miners actually end up paying LESS tax under the new system. Currently they have to pay royalties on their leases even if they aren't yet making a profit. That locks out many smaller players and gives the big guys a distinct advantage.

Where Telstra is concerned, have you bothered to find out what really caused the latest drop in the share price? It was actually caused by Optus picking up more of Telstra's mobile phone customers. That is documented fact. It had nothing to do with the NBN.

I knew you would bring up the issue of comparing the CBA with TLS. My comparison was on the basis that they are both ex government enterprises and I compared the GROWTH of the share price as a multiple of float price. This is a valid comparison across any sector. It is a measure of performance and shows up your "devil" in a very ugly light.

What isn't valid is to compare market cap on two different industries. A telco such as Telstra has millions of km of copper in the ground. A bank doesn't. It has massive cash flow and an extraordinary AA credit rating. You just can't compare them on a market cap basis.

Telstra has had HOW MANY YEARS to get it right? Sure there is a new CEO, who has the job of swimming upstream against a brown tide of effluent from within his own organisation. But I will celebrate after it happens, not before.

I currently have a mobile phone account with Telstra only because of their coverage. Optus is owned by Singapore's dictatorship superannuation fund, so I don't particularly want to deal with them. It would make me very happy if Telstra were to get a culture transplant and make some decent profits by treating their customers with a bit of respect, even thought I don't own a single TLS share.

The long-suffering TLS holders are due for a break. It is NOT the government that preventing this from happening. It is Telstra's histrionics. After all, if you can't make a monopoly work then what on earth CAN you do?