The ASX ramped up its campaign on Monday to clear the deal with Australia’s parliament, releasing a report from economic consultancy Access Economics which said the bid was in the country’s national interest.
A government proposal exposes a rich seam of discord
MINING, as both the firms doing it in Australia and the government would acknowledge, is the goose that laid the golden egg. But the two camps have sharply divergent views of the government’s proposed new tax on it: it is either an innocent egg-collecting operation or a vicious goose-killer. The so-called Resource Super-Profits Tax (RSPT) would be levied from 2012 on mining profits above a “normal” rate of return (defined as the ten-year government bond yield, currently below 6%), at the stiff rate of 40%.
After details of the proposed tax were unveiled a month ago, the boss of at least one huge global mining firm was reportedly livid. Mick Davis, chief executive of Xstrata, called the tax the “biggest assault on the mining industry I have witnessed.” Rio Tinto’s Tom Albanese also chipped in, branding Australia his “number one” sovereign risk, ahead of several countries not known for their stability, including Guinea and Mongolia. …
