mining taxes and royalties?
Ludwig,
I'm told some of the indigenous landholders receive rather substantial royalties. I don't know how much tax they're required to pay. Is public housing provided to them or is that covered by the royalties ? It appears that the landholders aren't doing to badly out of mining.

Ludwig why should miners pay special taxes, when they have done all the work to find the ore bodies, then rip the wealth out of the ground, paying their workers very well along the way.

If any one should have to pay special taxes it should be the banks. They are government, [tax payer] guaranteed when ever the stuff hits the fan, but meanwhile, rip their excessive profit out of the that same tax payer. Meanwhile they are screwing their workers, & off shoring everything they can, including our private details.

If you want to bend anyone over a barrel, it should be the senior bank staff, rather than the miners. May I suggest you use a pineapple, rough end of course.

I've got no problem with how much tax miners pay, I object to how much they earn! The lowliest labourers working in a mine earn vastly more than say Day Care workers, who look after our children!
As for the moguls, they should be paying progressive taxation.

Agreed Hasbeen; more regulation and tax imposition wouldn’t go astray on our banks.

Special taxes for miners? Whether there be special (additional) taxes or just increases to existing taxes is moot. But bigger taxes; yes, definitely.

<< …why should miners pay special taxes, when they have done all the work to find the ore bodies, then rip the wealth out of the ground, paying their workers very well along the way. >>

Because they are making disproportionate profits from resources that are supposed to be owned by all Australians.

Surely it is just a fundamental duty of government to strive for the right balance between facilitating mining companies in developing our resources with the motivation of big profits, and making sure that the best possible returns to the community are gained from those resources.

This is a simple desire that I believe you would agree with?

The big miners have huge power and influence over governments, along with the rest of the vested-interest pro-growth lobby. So the profit balance is very strongly skewed in their favour… and needs to be swung back in the favour of the whole community.

I think that there is plenty of scope to do this without threatening the profit motive of mining companies or the high rates of pay they offer their workers…. although as Squeers points out, they are arguably earning a bit too much and should probably be brought a bit more in line with non-mining incomes across the country.

I must admit that I find the term bandied around by Labor "fair share" has nothing to do with fair and should simply be replaced by "more".

The moment anyone and is seen to make more than the politically correct profit, this is considered unfair, and this individual should be punished and taxed until he realizes that hard work is "un Australian".

Who owns these resources? Surely the owner of the resources can set a price on those resources? At present we seem to set a price that encourages rapid exploitation of these resources; it my be better if we ratchet the price up, i.e learn a lesson from OPEC and ensure that we get a long term benefit.
If we want to know what the future looks like when one depends on resources for one's wealth then look no further than Broken Hill.