A billionaire mining magnet run adds in the newspapers to tell us ‘what is good for the billionaire is good for the battler’. These so called magnets have become rich beyond their wildest dreams on the back of Australia’s natural resources. Resources owned by Australia to be exploited for the benefit of all Australians, not just a privileged few.
As Wayne Swan has rightly pointed out,these billionaire are now trying to used their wealth and power to formulate public opinion in their favor. In reference to these billionaires Mr Swan said “They get a very good reward for what they do, but this country needs to be concerned about where the fair go is going, when people are spending large amounts of private cash to try and sabotage public policy,”
Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest are trying to disguise their own self-interest as being the national interest. They will spend what every it takes to gain control of public opinion for their own ends.
Abbott stands on the side line bleating rubbish about ‘class war’ as he tries to defend his billionaire mates.
As Wayne Swan said “I'm talking about something new and I think something that is quite insidious.” We should all be alarmed at the thought that these privileged few will use their vast wealth to try and gain political control of Australia for their benefit

from the beginning of colonisation
there has been the landed gentry..

with free prisoner labour/free land/free water
transport laid on..pipelines installed on the public purse
getting huge dams..huge areas of land..wealth for the harvesting

with the rum corpse
to service their advantages..
and jailing or criminalising..their workers
working to pay the rent..

while the abuser gets a tax reduction
on his in-vestment homes..putting[hiding]his[her]..wealth in a family trust

oh so secret
oh so special;

wayne is not attacking the lot of em
just the latest..newvo rich..[he darnt attack the old money]

but i suggest..the poor mug voters
will eat it up..just him and another minestyers comments alone
will add 3 points[wanna bet]..

imagine if he really believed it
wayne could become pm...thats only cause he dont challange the old money

its time wayne
to tripple family trust income tax
how can individuals claim so much personal wealth
in a family trust fund..[tax each individually..on the funds..total income..

the more sharing the colusive trust..advantage
the more pay the full tax bill..i hate trusts..and middle class welfare..and corperate bailouts...and those stealing our common wealth]

getting free pipelines
free ports..
free rail lines
free land./.free tax deductable lunched
free resterants..free entertainment..free subsidised transport

and the govt ear
but what about them other lot
selling public assets...collecting cyber toll
or getting a nice nbn landline past your investment
so cheap indians can run it from india..for one tenth its cost

yep
if govt is paying
its going to a mate

A lot of meat in this subject, glad you raised it. It is a discussion that isn't going to go away any time soon.

>>These so called magnets have become rich beyond their wildest dreams on the back of Australia’s natural resources<<

There's another way of looking at that. Private enterprise has invested enormous sums of money into mining activities, from prospecting through to end-product delivery. What they are seeing is the result of that investment.

>>Resources owned by Australia to be exploited for the benefit of all Australians, not just a privileged few.<<

If the various Australian governments over the past forty-plus years has invested our taxes in the same ventures, this would be a fair statement.

They didn't. It isn't.

What would be a contradiction of all we stand for in our non-communist country, would be to change the rules to the point where the ownership of the end-product of the mining industry suddenly becomes transferred to the State.

>>As Wayne Swan has rightly pointed out,these billionaire are now trying to used their wealth and power to formulate public opinion in their favor... Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest are trying to disguise their own self-interest as being the national interest. They will spend what every it takes to gain control of public opinion for their own ends.<<

That is, I agree, a problem. But it is "our" problem, in that the solution is in our hands: don't submit to bribery.

>>We should all be alarmed at the thought that these privileged few will use their vast wealth to try and gain political control of Australia for their benefit<<

Alarmed, no. Concerned, yes.

Not sufficiently alarmed to overturn every principle of doing business, by a retrospective annexation by the State of private property. But concerned enough to understand that surrendering to their narrow interests by accepting their bribes is bad for the country.

Treasurer Wayne Swan takes aim at 'wildly irresponsible' billionaires:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/class-warfare-wayne-swan-takes-aim-a-wildly-irresponsible-billionaires/story-e6frg12c-1226289405266

Good on him! It is not something that I would have expected, given how close the big business sector is to government, and how much power it wields over them.

Now I just hope that he and the government will vigorously debate this issue, at least as strongly as the barrage of full-page ads and comments in the various media put out by Forrest, Palmer and co.

But Swan is only attacking the ludicrous extreme of the millionaire-magnate / big-mining-company vested- interest regime of pressure on public opinion. He needs to broaden it right out and push for much greater independence of government, not least with a major overhaul of the political donations regime.

I think this would gel very well with the average voter, and could well be the key to putting Labor well ahead of Liberal come the next election.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it triggered a battle between the Libs and Labs to put forward the best set of policies for winding back the influence of big business and greatly improving the independence of government!

I have no problem with billionaires spending whatever they want on affecting public opinion, just with the lies and half-truths they use in going about it. That is what Swan should be highlighting, the fact that the sky will not fall in due to a C-tax and MRRT and billionaires will continue making billions while everyone else gets a fairer deal.

Paul I understand the concerns, but in a way the system is working.

The mining magnates are paying for big Ads and people like Wayne Swan are questioning the integrity publicly as are others in forums such as OLO, Crikey and the mainstream media.

I am not too worried by the Ads as I reckon they are only converting the already converted for the most part. In a democracy you cannot ban political Ads even from the private sector. The unions made use of the media in combatting the awful WorkChoices.

Let's face it, who would buy the billionaire/battler altruism scenario especially after the 'end of the world' hysteria whipped up over the resources tax.