Barnaby Joyce accuses Labor of using dodgy statistics in its propaganda for its Orwellian-named “Resource Super-Profits Tax” (RSPT).
From The Australian:
The Federal Government has more modelling “than Naomi Campbell” on its proposed mining tax, but none of it makes any sense, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.
He has accused the Government of hiding behind questionable statistics in its push to implement a 40 per cent tax on the super profits of mining companies.
“They’ve got more modelling than Naomi Campbell, but it’s all wrong,” Senator Joyce said today.
Indeed, the modelling is all wrong.
Professor Steve Keen, winner of the Revere Award for being the international economist who first and most cogently forewarned of the coming GFC, has demonstrated that Treasury’s modelling is based on economic fallacies and “a gaping hole in logic“, in a series of articles for Business Spectator. They can also be found on Professor Keen’s DebtWatch blog.
Returning to Barnaby:
He took special aim at Treasury over pie charts Treasurer Wayne Swan used to back the Government’s argument miners have been paying half the tax they were paying a decade ago.
Respected business commentator and ABC TV’s Finance presenter, Alan Kohler, today checked the numbers for himself in a column for Business Spectator titled, “The Government’s RSPT Spin Is A Disgrace”:
Another big accounting firm, Deloittes, has gone through ATO data and demonstrated that the effective tax rate for Australian mining companies (company tax plus royalties) is 41.3 per cent, compared with the average across all sectors of 27.18 per cent. I went into the ATO website and did the same calculation: it’s true.
In one of its taxpayer-funded advertisements, the government says: “Before the last boom Australia got 1 in every 3 dollars of mining profits in royalties and resource charges, we now receive just 1 in every 7 dollars.”
This statement is a disgrace, even leaving aside the fact that we are paying for it.
Back to Barnaby:
Senator Joyce wants to see the figures Treasury used to formulate the charts, but Departmental officials have opted to stall at a series of Senate estimates hearings this week.
“The pie charts don’t make any sense,” he said.
“They’ve had four days to explain two pie charts and they can’t do it.”
Indeed, according to mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest today, the head of the Treasury department Ken Henry – the architect of the now infamous Henry Tax Review – can’t even explain it himself:
Mr Forrest said Dr Henry had effectively conceded at a lunch with leading economists late last month that he was uncertain how financiers would view the rebate.
“When asked … he (Dr Henry) said, `I’m sure some clever banker is going to find out how to make it work’,” Mr Forrest said.
“What he’s saying to the Australian people is that he doesn’t know.
“Ken Henry doesn’t have the answers and what I know with absolute certainty is that he didn’t consult with the banking industry, like he didn’t consult with the mining industry.
As this blog has highlighted many times, Treasury secretary Ken Henry is not fit to hold his position, and should be sacked. The huge controversy over the RSPT only serves to confirm this view.
Yesterday Andrew Forrest revealed details of his own private conversations with Ken Henry over the RSPT, during which Henry admitted that the “logic” of his RSPT all rests on one critical assumption. The fact that this assumption is dead wrong, further proves Henry’s ivory-towered, disconnected-from-economic-reality incompetence:
“Ken has described to me how the tax works and it relies on a critical assumption, that the so-called guarantee of 40 per cent of losses in bankruptcy actually has a value to financiers,” Mr Forrest told ABC Radio.
“If it doesn’t, then in Ken Henry’s own words, the logic of the entire tax collapses and this is just a 40 per cent take, which of course will then damage the industry.”
Mr Forrest said he had told Mr Henry that the 40 per cent tax credit guarantee on losses would be worthless to the mining industry as it would not be worth anything to financiers when they decided on loans.
“It theoretically works for economists in textbooks, it doesn’t work in the real world.”
Which is exactly what contrarian economist Steve Keen says is true about almost all mainstream economic thought, in his brilliant book “Debunking Economics“.
UPDATE:
From The Australian:
One of Australia’s most respected economic forecasters, Chris Richardson, has demolished the intellectual and economic modelling behind the government’s resource super-profits tax, effectively telling Treasury it got it badly wrong..
The assault on the fundamental logic of the tax will seriously embarrass the government and the architect of the tax, Treasury secretary Ken Henry, given their repeated claims that their model will not deter investment and the mining industry is merely running a fear campaign.
Barnaby Is Right 
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