How is it possible that Australia gives away its mineral wealth to companies for so little that Qatar who produces the same amount of oil and gas makes $26.6 billion or $26,600 Million and Australia makes just 800 million?
How irresponsible is it that Australian tax payers miss out on revenues for what they own and get only a fraction of what their minerals are worth in levees. Oil and Gas 7% Iron Ore 3.5%. Indeed when the Sydney Morning Herald openly reports on Australians great minerals robbery you know if something is up and it is pure robbery.
"An Oxford University expert says Australia would be $90 billion better off if it adopted European-style resource tax policies and argues the Turnbull government has given up on collecting a meaningful amount of revenue from some of its most valuable resources."
"In one of a suite of new submissions to a Senate inquiry, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies academic Juan Carlos Boué warned unless Australia "radically overhauled its fiscal regime" it would have the second lowest share of government revenue from oil and gas in the world."
In stark contrast the Norwegian government who charges over 60% has just managed to obtain enough cash reserves to make every citizen a millionaire (150,000AUD) and they own 2% of the worlds shares and have the best schools in the world. We in Australia should be rich like they are in Norway, this could have been us.
Staggeringly Australian Politicians at state level give gas away for so so little that the Japanese government makes more money on its import tax on our gas than the Australian government does exporting it.
Japanese Schools, Hospitals, Universities healthcare etc gets more benefit from our gas than Australians do.
Not only that Japanese factories and steel mills can buy Australian Gas for 40% cheaper than Australian companies can in Australia. This despite the transport costs. This makes Australian steel noncompetitive because we are in effect subsidizing foreign factories. Our politicians allow this. Some estimates are its 60% cheaper in Japan
Car manufacturers and other industries will predictably locate closer to the source of cheap steel and energy putting Australians out of work with every car manufacturer in Australia now closed.
Iconic Australian company Brick Works is considering just that and could move offshore to Japan for the cheaper Australian Gas which is resulting in more Australian job losses. The threat of limiting exports without explicitly stating that other countries get our gas cheaper then Australian companies seems like a misnomer at best and remains just a suggestion printed in the media which Anthony Albanese has so far been very quiet on. Silence also on matters such as Julian Assange and any criticism on his predecessors hundreds of billions military spending on obsolete tecnology and second hand equipment has crippled the governments ability for large scale growth projects such as the green economy. The 2020 Defence strategic update (DSU) reaffirmed and adjusted the 10-year funding model to 2029–30 at a total cost of $575 billion.
The Aukus nuclear submarines will cost us up to 368 billion the price of almost 44,000 median priced Australian homes and they will be built in the UK and Australia however it is not clear how much of the building process will occur in Australia with the announcement of the deal made in a US shipyard, i suspect the lion share of jobs won't be Australian and who will be in command of them as the UK subs will have commanders from UK and USA rotating on them and based in Western Australia as detailed in the link above. Its not clear if Australian commanders will ever command our subs. Similarly the UKs Trident Nuclear Weapons system it is currently renewing for almost 200 billion pounds involves leasing the missiles from the Unites States.
Is it any wonder that the entire Australian car manufacturing business has closed down and cars now come from areas like Japan which are closer to cheaper steel and gas thanks to us giving away minerals and gas for so cheap. TOYOTA made cars in Australia from 1963 and has now done exactly that closing their Australian factory and moved back to Japan and the entire 100 year old Australian Industry now closed.
The ailing Australian steel industry has to compete with the fact a South Korean company can mine our iron ore for 3.5% of what it is worth and pay no Australian Business tax at all. (Free Trade is certainly free on our account) It then produces cheaper steel with cheaper Labor and poor environmental controls for cheaper Japanese and Korean cars. Australians lose out.
Notably the media blame a lack of investment for the steel industries demise, not the fact we give away steels raw materials Iron ore and gas to make it far cheaper for foriegn industry than Australian companies can access it. Often Australian Unions are blamed by politicians and the media who receive money from the Oil and Gas lobby and Australian Workers are asked to lower their pay and conditions as a result. Instead of the Government who are meant to represent us by asking that we get our fair share for our minerals that every citizen jointly owns, they remain flaccid on the issue.
Meanwhile the bosses lay off hundreds of Australian Workers every year without showing the real reason for Australian Steels demise. They hide this fact because they are playing a double game. At home they claim to be an Australian company interested in the future of Australian Steel and in fact Blue Steel operate numerous steel mills over Asia and India probably supplied by cheap Australian Gas And Iron ore whilst eroding Australian workers job prospects, pay and conditions.
So this is the robbery we all face. Our birth right of golden soils and wealth for toil whilst big business betray and dessert us. Even BHP have used a tax haven to deny your children the schools university and health care we all deserve by avoiding billions in tax. Hundreds of companies who earn over 200 million a year pay zero tax.
So think about this the next time the government talks about cash only welfare cards or immigrants, boat people or Muslims or when they finally announce a re tinker of the snowy mountain scheme for their green credentials. That’s what they want us to be talking about instead of the great robbery going on which has ripped us all off not only from cash wealth but the services and education we all deserve. In Qatar all healthcare is free as is University and they pay nothing for electricity water and gas. They are the wealthiest country on the Planet
Please share this article widely and book a meeting face to face with your state and federal representatives. Call them repeatedly. After all If you were being robbed of your wallet you would do something and call the police. Failing to act now may see us all have to also pay for the cleanup costs for their mess and it is clear that the mining companies have no intention of sharing any of the profit. Or cleaning up the mess as this video shows.
The Australian transition to a greener economy by large scale investment in solar and wind farms which would bring down manufacturing costs and improve Australians living standards, could be funded by tarrifs which is essentially our payment for the resource we all own. If other countries can enjoy proper compensation for their resources it is confusing why our politicians do not do the same for us and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process
Australia instead allows companies to undertake large scale under water seisemic testing a process which blows up the ocean floor with explosives damaging the marine environment and is suspected to be involved in ever more frequent mass strandings of whales. Seismic testing has also effected our Lobster industry and destroyed fisheries where sustainable catches of whiting and flathead along with Australian jobs disappeared overnight and every blast killing vital zooplankton for a 1.2km radius. Then if oil and gas is extracted we get just 7% for the resource we all own at the cost of environmental and economic collapse.
None the less do not let common sense get in the way of a good profit see here how Australian Gas Limited (AGL) now plans to profit further from this corrupt market and build a gas import terminal to buy some of that er cheap Japanese gas originally from Australia and sell it back to us at a good price no doubt..... After all this shows the maturity of the Australian Market AGL's Australian director says.
Gough Whitlam Australian Prime Minister was intending to 'Buy Back the farm' and the key reason he was dismissed by the Governor General (who had been writing directly to Queen Elizabeth) is that he was a patriot and intended to seize back control of Australia's mineral wealth for all Australians which at the time were largely in the control of Rio Tinto of which the Queen was the largest private shareholder. Its time we finished what Gough Started.
After all the Royal Family has earnt over 1 billion pounds from just two of its estates in Britain and under Queen Elizabeth's reign increased its income 16 fold so why they are allowed to also profit vastly from Australian resources is a distinct lack of political will and certainly not a Commonwealth.
This year Australia is forcast to sell 450 billion in mineral exports. That equates to 10,509 Australian dollars for every man woman and child in Australia in Just one year if we followed Norway and Qatars lead and charged just 60% tariff for our sovereign property. Currently we Charge between 3,5 % for Iron Ore and are the second lowest charging country in the world for our oil and gas at just 7% equating to just 875 dollars for each citizen averaging 5%. Even if we charged 30% That would be 5254 each.
What the Australian Government really needs to do is start to tap into our mineral wealth properly and build the green infrastructure and industry to sustain our future and build large scale housing for two generations of Australians who have been locked out of the housing market and trapped into the rental market and nationalize the assets sold off cheaply to corporations like power and water. We need to build our health care to the point its free and efficient and education is also free like it is in Qatar and provide Australian Children homes at the same price their parents brought them.
Encouragingly under the new Labor administration Queensland has took the move to charge 20% and 40% on coal valued over 150 and 300 dollars a tonne in July 2022 so better late than never however why the first 150 dollars a tonne is tarrif free is a mystery. This brings the tariff to double what other Australian states are charging however it has not prevented sales which are booming whilst giving Queenaland tax payers a 3 billion dollar windfall so far
Until this change Chinese imports of Australian Coal enjoyed a 10% tarrif on imports making the transaction more benificial for Chinese taxpayers then what Queenslanders were getting just 7% then 12% when prices were rose higher. Now due to better relations under the Albanese Labour government China has dropped its tarrif on Australian coal and numerous other products like wine, wheat, barley and cheese much to the relief of several Australian industries and normal relations are now resuming with our largest export trade market.
Author : Paul Hanes is an occasional Citizen Journalist and Peace Activist.
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The Australian Government has decided to use the Australian Steel and Car Manufacture industries as a firing range completely destroying it.