#ausvotes

Greens Mining Tax Policy

• Summary

  The Greens think the concessions made in negotiating the MRRT are too much and that the tax should be increased. They want the revenue to be invested in skills for workers, infrastructure, reducing company tax for small business, and superannuation. However, if the Coalition blocks the bill in the Senate the Greens will support it in its present form – they will not help the mining industry avoid tax through the Coalition.

  
  

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  The Greens support the reformed taxation of the mining industry as it obviously exploits Australia’s non renewable the natural resources, and sends the profits overseas due to the large foreign interests in the largest miners. Their predominant view is that all Australians own these mineral resources and as they are only ever able to be extracted once, that as opposed to the presently existing royalties scheme, a high premium ought to be placed on their value. While forced to be pragmatic when dealing with the escalating exponents of conservation and economic globalization, the Greens favor a heavier taxation of the mining industry and reinvestment by miners into the skill set of its workers. Mining according to the Greens, ought not only pay for its own infrastructure, but also acknowledge the threat of climate change, implement systems with a view to water conservation and build sustainability within the community and its agriculture.

  
  

  With an underlying disapproval of irresponsible mining practices, the Greens will not support the ALP’s MRRT as negotiated in early July as in their view, it provides too many concessions; the introduction of a 25% extraction allowance , the threshold raised to the bond rate + 7% (and $50m) with a headline rate of 30%. In addition, promises of $6bn of government investment in mining infrastructure, the original 40% tax inclusive of concession has been compromised down to an effective rate of 22.5%.

  
  

  Rather, the Greens would prefer that the headline rate of the tax be increased. They contend that the negotiations are at the expense of small business who rather than receiving the promised company tax reductions to 28% will now be paying 29%. Apart from benefits to business the Greens want superannuation benefits and further infrastructure investment to benefit the broader community. They estimate the concession made in Labor’s mining tax negotiations to cost Australians approximately $4bn over the next few years.

  
  

  Justifying the threat to investment in the mining industry that this tax represents, is what the Greens say is the envy of the world; a stable political environment in Australia which not only has unique resources to complement the Chinese economy, but one that offers investors a secure place to build long term industries such as mining. This, the Greens say, will ensure that investment in Australian mining will continue to flow in from offshore.

  
  

  While the Greens wish to amend the MRRT bill in the Senate and advise that the tax ought to be increased as it applies to the mining industry to recover the full $12bn as originally envisaged, in the event of the Coalition blocking the MRRT, the Greens will use their influence in the Senate to assist the passage of the bill unopposed. To the Greens, this eventuality is to be preferred to the alternative, one that envisages Australians being deprived of their right to an appropriate return on their non-renewable resources and a forgoing of $10.5bn of spending initiatives within the budget. Indeed, they did as much in respect of the LNP blocked stimulus package of 2009. The Greens do not want the balance of power in the Senate to go to the mining industry through the Coalition’s numbers.