Altruistic??? Give me a break! They settled on a new mining tax,...

Altruistic??? Give me a break! They settled on a new mining tax, coming in at far too low a level, simply to try and show they were balancing the books after all the spending (much of which has been subject to rorting and mismanagement).

Such a tax is politically more palatable than raising income tax and that is why it was selected. There is no altruism involved, period.

Otherwiaw they would have persevered with an emmisions trading scheme. Remember the most important issue of our time? Whimped out because it became too difficult, too costly and too unpopular.

They have been spending like there was no tomorrow, except that tomorrow has arrived and it doesn't look pretty!