Paul i am quite aware that they are paying company tax at this rate and pay royalty payments also.The varience i see is that they have not been good partners in the public private partnership and are bottle necking the ports as they compete with each other for market share resulting in lost royalties to the goverment .Instead they compete with each other for existing infrastructure that is falling behind they wayside.Take fmg and the fight for infrastructure before getting off the ground .Also take telstra and the nbn .They wont form an alliance to advance the country while competing for market share with each other. They drag down the rest of the country who have to compete with them for the share of our countries resources not associated with direct extraction. ie housing labour roads ports water power rail lines airlines the list goes on in the effects mining has on the rest of the community who do not have direct exposure to mining.When reaching parity or close to with the us dollar it effects alot of other industries who rely on lower dollar values to compete with world trade.Im sure you are well aware of all this and many in the country do not see mining as the be all end all of our revinue streams .Take a small country town who relies on cheap labour housing etc for it community to survive, a mining company starts up bussiness seems to booom in figures for awhile but then they start to see the workers leave the industries and work in the mines or leave town because they cannot afford the rents etc etc.Mining has been boom bust before and will most likely happen again and yes they just close down leaving havoc behind them.The past years it was seen that we failed to take full advantage of the boom because of infrastructure failings by these big companies.Sure they spend big in their own area ie the lease .But do they put enough capital into the rest of the countries infrastructure? That other companies, people also use.Some of these big companies do not even list in Australia. xtrata for example.Brought out an Australian company and could not even list here.Some may say super funds share in these profits but there is also super fund selection that only invest in Australian companies.These big companies are bureaucracies in thier own rights and will manipulate buy or use corruption for the growth shareholders expect and just like goverments the corporate sector has trouble dealing with this.Take rio and its recent affairs with China .How much possible damage could that have done to our resource sector if China no longer wanted to do bussiness with us ?One company one agenda .Communities and how the effects companies have on them is very low in an excutives mind regardless of the painted picture they do with public relations.In fact with studies i have read on this, its importance in a scale of ten is well down the bottom.They hurt themselves by not investing in the community and increasing the level of spending on infrastrucure that will be around after the boom.I read most of the commentry today in the financial review and most what i could gather apart from the politcal agendas the community as a large is going to back this because it does not want to be left picking up the pieces when it goes bust.Same as companies do not want to be left with infrastrucure in place with no value.Many do see value in infrastructure being in place for future boom times when the high flyers are gone and dusted.
