Tag Archives: fortescue metals

Gillard “Mad Dog’s Breakfast” Devours Australia For Benefit Of Foreign Interests

16 Jun

Have you stopped to think carefully … and deeply … about why a (supposedly) democratic and (supposedly) poll-driven government persists with pushing through big “tax” policies, when polls consistently prove that the majority of citizens oppose them?

Is it really a matter of high-minded “belief” and “principle”?

Or, is it really about something far more low-brow and prosaic – selling out Australia for the benefit of big foreign interests.

One only need pause to scratch below the surface of the political rhetoric, and reflect carefully on the evidence, for the answer to become crystal clear.

From The Australian, June 15, 2011 (emphasis added):

Mr Forrest [head of local Aussie miner Fortescue Metals] slammed the draft laws for the mineral resources rent tax, released on Friday, as a “mad dog’s breakfast” that would benefit Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata at the expense of the smaller, local miners – and that could trigger legal action if it went unchanged.

“I think there are many companies, a government or two, and ourselves, who will mount a High Court challenge,” Mr Forrest said.

“It is not my preference. My preference is to speak to the Treasurer, explain to him that the reason why the multinationals agreed to this tax in just three days from (Julia) Gillard being appointed (Prime Minister) was because they were protected from it and everyone else had to pay.”

The Gillard government’s carbon dioxide “tax” scheme is designed with exactly the same malevolent, Australia-loathing intent as the mining tax.

Global mining giant BHP Billiton’s South African CEO, Marius Kloppers, has been directly and intimately involved in the by-invitation-only, closed-doors negotiation over the design of both of our Green-Labor government’s great big new “tax” schemes.

Consider very carefully what Kloppers has angled for, in his sweetheart deal with Gillard on the carbon dioxide “tax”.

From The Australian, September 16, 2010:

A(nother) key consideration would be to give industries exposed to the tax a rebate, Mr Kloppers said, because without a global price, these companies would become uncompetitive and might consider shifting polluting assets to countries without a carbon tax.

Sounds reasonable, right?

Wrong.

It’s a sneaky, deceitful, anti-competitive, market-monopolising ploy. One that would completely absolve BHP of any costs at all under the “carbon tax”, while penalising all of their smaller competitors – our local, up-and-coming Aussie miners.

Which is why our much-maligned local Aussie businessman (and indigenous philanthropist of the first order), Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, was on to this scam like a flash.

From the Herald Sun, Sept 22, 2010 (emphasis added):

Mr Forrest said that Mr Kloppers’ carbon tax plan was designed to help BHP.

“He says you get a complete rebate if you are an exporter. BHP is a total exporter so he is embedding a tax that will be paid for by everyone else, a la the minerals resource rent tax.”

Consider too, the recent Open Letter by “13 leading economists” in favour of a carbon dioxide “pricing mechanism”.

10 / 13 of whom are directly connected to the banking industry.

An Open Letter whose leading light, former ANZ bank economist Saul Eslake, is now employed by the Grattan Institute.  An “independent public policy think-tank”.  One that was set up and funded by the Australian Government… and BHP Billiton.  An “independent” institute featuring none other than … you guessed it … BHP Billiton’s Marius Kloppers on its Board of directors.

“Independent” my @$$!

Let there be no misunderstanding.

Everything that this government does, is done with the deliberate intention of weakening our country – destroying our local industries, impoverishing households, and weakening our government financial position.

Why?  Because our every act of wilful economic self-harm, has benefits for non-local (ie, foreign) interests.

The evidence is unmistakable.

They really are, quite literally, selling us out.

Once upon a time, what they are doing was called “treason”.

And punished accordingly.

The MRRT and the proposed “carbon pricing mechanism” have both been deliberately designed – and secretly negotiated – to place an unfair burden only on local Aussie companies.  To the benefit of the monster multinationals such as BHP Billiton and RIO.

The carbon dioxide “tax” / trading scheme is deliberately designed to destroy our nation’s natural low-cost energy advantage (coal-fired power).  To the benefit of the international bankstering cartels such as Goldman Sachs and friends.

Consider also, this very interesting fact.

Our Green-Labor government does not even know – officially – who owns more than 60% of the $200 billion public debt they have racked up.

Now, the “independent” (there’s that word again) Reserve Bank of Australia “estimates” that 73% of our debt is owed to (unidentified) “non-residents” of Australia. But our government’s own department, the one that actually sells our debt, officially doesn’t have a clue.

The writing is on the wall, dear reader.

Because both of the two big economic “reforms” that are about to be legislated by our Green-Labor government – led by life-long “creeping communist” Julia Gillard – are designed to devour Australia.

For the benefit of foreign interests.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

BHP’s 100% Carbon Tax Rebate, While You Pay Higher Electricity

2 May

Last Friday, the Independent MP Tony Windsor challenged BHP’s Marius Kloppers to “put up or shut up” on the carbon (dioxide) tax.  Barnaby Joyce immediately shot back that it is Windsor who should declare his hand on the issue, since he is one of the very few who can decide its fate in Parliament.

It’s worth taking a few moments to brush up on the history of the Gillard-BHP-carbon tax connection.

Just after the Gillard/Greens/Independent minority government was sworn in last year, Kloppers stepped out as the first Big Business leader in Australia to publicly advocate for a carbon tax.  But more recently, he’s been making noises that “appear” to argue in the opposite direction:

After the federal election, Mr Kloppers became the first chief executive of a major company to support a price on carbon.

He urged Australia to act before any international agreement in order to protect the nation’s long-term economic interests.

In China this week, he said Australia should not penalise its trade-exposed industries by imposing a carbon tax ahead of international competitors.

What is Kloppers really up to?

Simple.  He’s using the media to “negotiate” another sweet-heart deal for BHP.  Exactly a la the secret backroom deal-making over the terms of Gillard’s revised Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT).

What kind of sweet-heart deal?

These public comments from last September suggest Kloppers’ game plan:

A(nother) key consideration would be to give industries exposed to the tax a rebate, Mr Kloppers said, because without a global price, these companies would become uncompetitive and might consider shifting polluting assets to countries without a carbon tax.

At the time, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, of the much smaller miner Fortescue Metals, was on to Kloppers’ strategy like a flash:

Mr Forrest said that Mr Kloppers’ carbon tax plan was designed to help BHP.

“He says you get a complete rebate if you are an exporter. BHP is a total exporter so he is embedding a tax that will be paid for by everyone else, a la the minerals resource rent tax.”

In future, whenever you hear Gillard and Combet et al parrotting on with smooth, soothing reassurances about how jobs will not be lost under their carbon (dioxide) tax because it will offer “protection for ‘trade-exposed’ industries”, just remember what ‘trade-exposed’ really means.

It’s double-speak.

If you’re BHP Billiton, it means a 100% rebate.  No pain.  Lots of gain (once the mega-$ accountants have performed their magic).

If you’re a small-to-medium size industry or exporter – without the lobbying muscle of a BHP – it means you’re about to get bent over.  Lots of pain.  No gain.

Kloppers’ carbon tax “exporter rebate” plan would place the onus on Australian consumers to pay dramatically higher electricity prices, while BHP would get a full rebate on any carbon tax that they might “have” to pay.  Meaning, BHP profits remain at a maximum.  Along with Kloppers’ own remuneration package, of course.

All the rest is pure smoke and mirrors.  Kloppers’ giving the appearance of possibly “wavering” or switching sides is pure gamesmanship.  Designed to maximise pressure on a weak minority government, to cave in to the greedy aspirations of Big (International) Business.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Joyce: ‘More Modelling Than Naomi Campbell’

3 Jun

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: