Perhaps it might teach governments not to put all of their eggs in one basket. Past governments have been sold on the level playing fields/global economy claptrap and allowed our industries to be closed down and taken off shore. We now sell our resources for little instead of value adding and developing industries in our own country.
My impression of level playing fields and global economy says World bank/USA/cheap labour. Multi nationals have always gone to where they can offer beads and bangles until they have completely raped the country of third world economies or the world bank offers large loans that can never be repaid and the tell the governments of that country what they have to do. Result=exploitation, pollution, starving citizens of that country.
Our governments allow tax breaks for the companies that are not available to the rest of the public.
That is, after their highly paid taxation accountants have used every loophole to show they have not really made a big profit. Remember Packer a few years ago published in his newspaper and boasting he had no taxable income?
Consider the quality of our resources and then consider the costs to these companies of having to close their operations in Australia and then re-build again in another country for as long as the resource supply is available.
Somehow I have a feeling this is their way of trying to frighten the government away from having them pay a fair price for the resources.
Remember when they have stripped these resources then it will not re-generate, although granted the resources will last for many years, probably longer than we will supply, so cynically, it will be the future generations who will suffer.
I have been an employer for most of my life, only the latter years I worked as a consultant to the government and later as a Public Servant, so I am not strictly a union man. I do support a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and give respect to those who contribute a valuable resource in their skills, experience and knowledge.

The thinker
I think that about covers your last post TheMissus

No it doesn't as banks will not finance some projects now. NPV affected now so it is asking banks to take risk on in a climate when they have been asked to be more prudent.

If you say markets have not been affected already by this you are not in the investment world. How much by can be discussed but it is pure ignorance to suggest no market impact The market is fuming. I cannot believe anyone could actually suggest it.

Besides it is simply going to other rich big business, it is economic policy not social policy, All these rambling by geenies how it will save resoucres FALSE, How it will be fair for all Australians, FALSE I wish people would actually read a bit into to before they make all these stupid claims.

I am not sure if this will sink our economy but there is no denying the risk. A very real risk and the reward is what? Higher superannuation 10 years away when only 1/3 companies will be given offsetting tax cuts funded by rspt? The ability to avoid tax through transfer pricing and vertical integrationa/mergers whereas royalty is not negotiable or avoidable. Blind freddy can see this is a tax grab to fund the hole our government has spent itself into and to make the claim all Australian will benefit IS A TOTAL LIE.

I wish anyone that wants to make this claim actually offer some proof as to how.

Also plenty of graphs going around that prove our dollar got dumped moreso than other countries that are commodity related like Indonesia and Canada. In spite of Reserve Bank attempt to prop it up a week after Rudd said he wanted it to sink so Indian students got a better exchange rate. ?? And the wrold is supposed to see us as smart?

professor-au >> governments have been sold on the level playing fields/global economy claptrap and allowed our industries to be closed down and taken off shore. We now sell our resources for little instead of value adding and developing industries in our own country. <<

Prof, the "Lima Declaration" (1975) on international industrial development was the roadmap to our economic and societal degeneration.
In short the U.N, World Bank, and the IMF set up manufacturing in the third world for big business. This manufacturing movement from the first to the third world was touted as a humanitarian "share the wealth" exercise, supposedly to the benefit of the plebs. But all it has achieved is to turn an agri slave into a factory slave. The Money is the only winner.

An outline on what the Lima deal did for Australia.

The Lima Declaration is an agreement to wind down Australian manufacturing by around 30% and to import that amount from other preferred Countries together with as much primary produce as we can consume. Such as fruit, meat etc. In conjunction all tariffs imposed on imports will be phased out. The 30% was a target that has now blown out; current estimates are that 90% of our production capacity has gone.

How has the government wound down the incentive to produce? Simply by making an un-level playing field. Increase taxes, interest rates, the cost of employing people (without the worker gaining any benefit), remove import duty and industry protection, legislate environmental planning controls. All these things in combination destroy our ability to produce.
How does The Lima Declaration affect me?
* Simply 50% of the productive Australian workforce becomes unemployed.
* Taxes on the remainder in employment increases, to pay for the unemployed
* With new shortage of income you are forced to buy cheaper -- imports, or go without thereby aggravating the spiral of well planned economic transfer (oppression)

Welcome to Australia in the millennium, well all first world nations really including, America, we are all screwed.

The Lima Declaration and then GATT, we are done turn us over please.

http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/lima/

Sheesh, luckily Hawke and Keating were smart enough to start removing
import duties! Who benefits? All consumers, especially the poor.

All that import duties were doing was making competitive export
industries less competitive, by carrying that additional cost
burden.

Industry run by the Melbourne Club, where shoddy goods were forced
on consumers by local monopolies, finally ended!

Why on earth should Australia make toasters, if others do it far
better then us? Best we do things where we have a comparitive
advantage and the things we are good at.

Today the average Australian is better off then 25 years ago,
for this very reason.

Yabby I appreciate your comments, my issue is that compared to 25 years ago we have a plethora of products that came because of technology rather than disposable income. I recall a the seventies, I had a car, I had a motor bike, I had a boat, I had a roof over my head and food in my stomach and the great Aussie weekend was always great......and if I did not like the job I had today, I could find another tomorrow.
Regarding youth employment of the era, you pick an apprenticeship and you were guaranteed of a place, unless you were a zero. Kids now go to year 12 and are lucky to get a job in McDonalds or KFC, that is where their sights are set because that is the only opportunity this free trade economy has bequeathed them. Yabby that cheap toaster has cost billions.