It sure is a dirty business.
Can someone explain how a foreign company can come into Australia mine our resources and apart from some wages for the workers - how this is good for Australia?

The TV series Dirty Business and Ms Burnside are coming from the extreme left of the debate while ponde is just confused.

They play up times where employers have won struggles with unions and quietly overlook the fact that there are now very good jobs and conditions in mining for those willing to work on remote sites, because they have to be attracted there.

As for indigenous rights the Native title legislation must be 20 years old. It was brought in by Keating after the Mabo decision. so what's the verdict?

If you listen to the miners they will tell you its all very costly to go through all the agreements and environmental regulations to build a new mine in Australia. You may disagree with those statements but at least Dirty Business could have acknowledge the miner's side of the debate. Otherwise they leave themselves open to charges of bias.

As for Ponde's remark, the foreign company has to pay taxes in Australia and royalties on the minerals.. note both state and federal royalties.. for various reasons the Federal government is not getting much at the mo, but the states still are.

Iron ore mining needs to be nationalized. 80% of all revenue goes overseas. All we get is a depletion of natural wealth.
Mega rich people earning a million an hour, and pay ? tax is obsene.
The real player in iron ore has passed on, it was his lease where the iron ore is mined. So did that lease get passed on, without contest.
There is dirty business behind iron ore mining.

'A dog that bites the hand that feeds it, soon will learn to live without' ('A Proper Gander at the Propaganda' from The Versed writing of Jock McPoet) perhaps best describes 'Dirty Business'. The mining industry, time and time again has saved the Australian economy and has been fundamental in making this country a great place in which to live.
'Dirty Business' damns with faint praise an industrious industry which deserves better recognition. We are being sadly misinformed by a generation of media presenters who in turn have been sadly misinformed by a generation of left-wing educators. Surely it's time for a fundamental review of the facts. Prior to European settlement, there was no 'Native Title'. The strongest tribe belted weaker tribes into submission and stole their territory and their women. A book, 'Cape York - the savage frontier' exposes the myth of 'native title' (republished by my company, CopyRight Publishing). There was no Aboriginal flag - an invention of the patronising 1970s. If Australia was not defended (with the help of the USA) against Japanese invasion in WW2, how many today of all backgrounds would enjoy the prosperity and relative freedom we all experience now? Unless we have a strong economy, how can we protect ourselves and our children from natural catastrophe or man-made external threats?
I look forward to when a great industry comes up with a better representation of its record. For millennia, humans of many races have walked over the immense riches which lie beneath the surface of this abundant Earth, and have lived in poverty. When human inventiveness and endeavour unlocks these riches, it's amazing how many who have done nothing to contribute to the effort required to unlock the wealth clamor for 'their share'.

John McRobert

@ponde: "Can someone explain how a foreign company can come into Australia mine our resources and apart from some wages for the workers - how this is good for Australia?"

This is such a megadaft question that I hardly know where to begin. In the first place mining companies buy mining licences, pay local taxes, and purchase local goods and services as well as paying wages. In the second place, they dig some stuff out of the ground where it's not doing anyone any good at all and turn it into useful products that allow us to light our homes, grow our crops, build our cars, run our computers and build our roads.

Look around your room: if you can find one manufactured item which hasn't been created from or improved by a mining product, I will be very surprised indeed.

Mining licenses are dependant on what you are mining and the value thereof. This would be a very small fraction of the value of that which is extracted.
The royalties are at 20% of that exported WOW .
Local goods and services, wages a mear pitence.
Yes I have looked around my room - not much has been manufactured in Australia. Most of its profits go to overseas companies.

Tom Price was the man responsable for locating the richest iron ore mountain in AU, he went back to US and died. It just happened to be on Hancock grazing lease.
Au only gets a fraction of the wealth generated by iron ore. A very disproportionate share.
This is AU's wealth not anyones elses, It was found on crown land.
All these gigantic profits should be left in AU, not syphoned of to another country.
I can't understand how crown land mineral can become the ownership of the leassee, which has now passed on, and aparantly so has the lease.

579 and ponde

This bit about Australia only getting a fraction of the wealth from mining is total nonsense. Most of our current wealth actually comes from mining.

579, you must know that the statistic you quote that 80 per cent of revenue from mining goes overseas is entirely wrong. So is your statement about crown land minerals becoming the property of mining companies. All minerals in Australia are owned by governments, state and federal - they are not part and parcel of freehold use - and those governments charge royalties to companies that dig it up. Much of the argument they have over the mining tax a couple of years back was as a result of this very point.

C can you expand on that somewhat,
Mt Tom price was on hancock pastoral lease, so how did lang hancock and gina get in on the act.
i will try and find those figures again about the 80%.

The program Dirty Business, as with this article must be some of the most disgusting lefty propaganda ever published. Slime of the highest order.

I do find it interesting how many authors are so impressed by other authors, they can't stop quoting them. I suppose it could be that reading the opinion of others is the only way these people get something to write about.

Then we get the dills who can't understand that without the foreign exchange earned by mineral exports we could not afford to import the computer they are typing on.

I abhor the loss of our manufacturing, but you can't blame people for not investing in a country where idiots are treated as if they had some idea.

A mate of mine, an electrician went mining 30 years ago. He was a safety officer on night shift. He complained about being bored stiff. Union rules meant he was not allowed to do any work, except in an emergency, & then only to make safe, not repair. Today it is worse.

Mining is the only industry that has been able to survive this sort of bloody mindedness of unions, & Labor in Oz. The rest has failed under the strain. I wonder how much longer it will survive this rubbish along with carbon tax, & mining tax rhorts by this lefty government.

“Dirty Business” was not quite as bad as I had expected for its title and promos. At least it made some effort to show some of the benefits as well as the costs of mining – which is all obviously too much for Sarah.

For those who doubt the benefits of our current resources expansion, look at those developed countries that don’t have our minerals or access to China’s growing markets. The USA and Europe have flat or contracting domestic economies, stubbornly high unemployment, and massive government debts. Australia’s economy would be in much worse shape without resources.

579 is woefully misinformed. The education system has failed us again. Tom Price came to Australia because Lang Hancock, a remarkably hard-working and energetic pastoralist, prospector and miner discovered vast amounts of iron ore and convinced Rio and Kaiser to provide the capital and expertise to develop these riches. In a single-engined aeroplane made of metal tubing and cloth, he flew the decision makers from the UK and the USA over unfriendly terrain to show them his discoveries, and similarly guided the geologists to the sites. He was responsible for the creation of Hamersley Iron which built the infrastructure and asked no money up front, simply a nominal share of the resultant wealth. He and his daughter Gina ploughed most of that share back into further exploration and development of a hitherto neglected and always difficult part of this continent where weather extremes are truly extreme. I weep at the johnny-come-latelys who now make such ill-informed criticisms of the achievements of Lang Hancock and Gina Rinehart.

Our mining industry might be 'the best thing since sliced bread' - and we may or may not be getting our, Aussie, fair share of the wealth generated - but this article raises another, and perhaps overriding question: is our relatively 'hit and miss' style of government really the best we can do?

A review of our governments' performances, even over recent times, certainly reveals some major successes as well as major failures, but one reality seems clear: our governmental system is ponderous, doesn't demonstrate a high degree of reliability, is subject to significant, and often overriding interest in its, or their, particular 'political' philosophy (ie of its, or their, policy imperatives, and that of its, or their, satisfaction of prime 'constituents'), is subject to significant pressures from various 'vested interest' groups, and is enormously expensive to maintain - irrespective of outcomes.

Democracy is great, but how about a democratically elected Public Corporation, whose Board, CEO, and key executives are elected from candidates demonstrating attributes key to those positions - positions and Position Descriptions which have been determined to accord with a Corporate Plan and Charter as drafted and proposed by an appropriately astute Board of Trustees/Governors selected from the ranks of our most learned and revered elders. Corporate Plan and Charter would have to accord with our existing Constitution and Bill of Rights, take account of existing international agreements and responsibilities, and hold its primary responsibility to be the due interests of the investors - being the Aus populace - and our Aus national sovereignty. Ten year terms for all positions, subject to annual performance review, and mandatory retirement at age 75.

Separate, and duly elected, Heads of an Audit Body, with responsibility for fiscal and performance review(s).

No more hung parliaments, no more interstate rivalry or underhanded competition, no more 'dead wood' or policy 'tangents'. Worth a thought?