I agree rehctub with your balanced view except the type of ownership that the Australian Taxpayer, (through it's elected Govt) possesses in the case of our minerals, is different too owning a share in a exploration lease for mining.

Risk I would have thought was intrinsic to that business and it's participant's, and should be factored in to their business plans regardless. The taxpayer risks losing 8 % of its GDP temporarily if we shop for new lessee's to mine our minerals. If the existing ones all left at once.

As home owners would object to the terms and conditions of a lease with tenants being set and determined by those tenants, the taxpayer should feel short changed if the relationship with with Mining Giants is one of the tail wagging the dog.

The RSPT is the first test of this , and I'm hoping the tail isn't wagging the dog.

Custard, it's only 12 years ago that the miners were all loosing a fortune.

Oversupply had allowed Japan to screw the prices down so low than small miners were taken over, before they went to the wall, & many large ones just survived. They need reserves to get through those periods.

You might be surprised how much of those mining giants are owned in large part, by the super funds, INCLUDING the union owned super funds.

When one looks at the history of british industry, particularly the moter industry, & others like it, one can see that unionist stupidity killed those industries, & put themselves out of work, bigtime. They are still out of work.

The politics of envy do more harm to workers, than they do management. Don't be a pig headed fool.

This is at the heart of the issue, in my view.

>>Ok, bugger off then... We'll sit on our assets until you come, hat in hand, begging to be allowed to dig them up... Then we'll squeeze top dollar out of them.<<

Although perhaps not in quite the same way that Custard intended.

First of all, it should be recognized that mining companies need Australia far less than Australia needs mining companies.

After all, the stuff that they fail to dig up, for whatever reason, is not going to go anywhere, is it? It will still be there when a) the government relents, and restores the previous levels of profitability, or b) world prices reach a point that restores the previous levels of profitability.

The only people who will suffer in the meantime are those folk who rely upon the mining industry for their livelihood - there will, for a time, be less for them to do, and hence less wages, hence less momentum in the economy.

So I take most of the mining industry's complaints with a pinch of salt. They will simply move their investment money elsewhere to get a better return for a while, and come back when either a) or b) above comes to pass.

Similarly, for the government it is also pretty much a win/win. By raising the profitability threshhold, they will constrict supply, which will keep world commodity prices high. And the underlying mineral assets stay exactly where they are, to be monetized at a later date.

In the meantime, the additional hardship (increased unemployment, damage to our trade balance etc.) can all be blamed on those nasty, greedy miners.

Perfect.

Australia doesn't need mining companies AT ALL in that regard...

Mining Companies give bugger all back to the Community, and most of the money goes offshore.

Let them pull out of their leases, pass an Act under which every lease which is not worked for 12 months reverts to the Crown, and your mother's got a brother called Robert.

They will not dare to risk losing their leases, the shareholders would crucify them, case closed.

Would it be fair to say also Rehctub that your point your making when you say:

"What the government is proposing is for all Australians to become ‘shareholders’, without being exposed to the ‘risks’, and it is this arrangement you see as wrong".

is that the australian taxpayer should become a shareholder in the mining risk ? .
The minerals themselves already belong to the taxpayer.

I don't think , that is what the Govt is proposing, or really comparable with it

I mean, it stands to reason, that if s.51(xx) of the Constitution is not limited by s.51(xxxv) (see NSW v Cth (Work Choices Case)), despite the previous authority (Schmidt v A-G (Cth), etc.) then s.51(xx) is not subject to s.51(xxxi) either (the placetum under discussion in Schmidt itself). The alternative is that it is supported under the bounties and export placetum (s.51(iii) or the Taxation power (s.51(ii)) or a combination thereof.

I mean, the radical decision in the WorkChoices Case is just that, a radical departure from decades of Constitutional Jurisprudence, so why would the specific authority under s.52(ii) or s.52(xx) be limited by another power? That is PRECISELY the effect of the WorkChoices Case, so let's see the Mining Companies reap what they've sown.

Therefore, their should be NO PROBLEM with such an Act, whereby abandoned leases revert to the Crown. It is not retrospective (so it is valid in terms of Taxation & Acquisition of Property), so it will either stop the current mining companies pulling out despite their threats, or allow other companies with better sense in.

Either way, it puts the miners over a barrel at Mardi Gras