As Senator Christine Milne the Greens leader claimed in her address to the National Press Club, is Australian democracy at the crossroads? Is our future as a nation being determined by mining billionaires in their boardrooms in the interest of themselves and their overseas shareholders? Are the Labor and Coalition parties nothing more than the servants of big miners protecting the vested interest of mining corporations at the expense of the interests of the broader Australian community?
The full speech and interview with Senator Christine Milne;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-19/national-press-club-christine-milne/4527708

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/original-mining-tax-would-cost-billions-20130220-2erqk.html

Every time Milne opens her mouth she sounds like an unreasonable child, but that's Greens for ya. She must realize why the tax hasn't raked in a lot yet, but bellyaches just the same. Time must pass before the tax can be properly judged, but its revenue should go into the future fun while that time passes, and budgets should exclude it, IMO, due to its volatile market-linked nature.

Interesting that BHP paid the majority of tax collected so far http://www.smh.com.au/business/bhp-billiton-pays-77m-in-mining-tax-20130220-2er7l.html

Happy to see the child left home yesterday, and good riddance.

"future fun"? . Future Fund!

Paul lets face it greens have been gone fron the day tweedledum and Tweedleddummer took over.
Labor will fall and rise again your mob? just fall.

Just a side bar, why bag the miners who are nothing if not productive. Our former people’s bank, the Commonwealth has set a record half yearly profit of near 4 BILLION...and bankers produce nothing...just an obvious juxtaposition. That was our bank, but Labor sold it off….do you believe it Labor not the Libs stole our bank.

Regarding the miners, I have an interesting fact regarding the Billiton swindle of BHP. If you follow the price of the Australian dollar during an 18 month period with the sale date to Billiton at the centre, the graph looks like a smile. The two high points on either end are around .65 cents….Billiton purchased in the guts at .49 cents.

The banks steal from us.
The miners steal from us.
This Labor government steals from us.

We are orphans folks, we have no peoples representatives.

The Greens think Labor is selling Oz down the river and Tony says he'd never do deals, due to his amazing integrity, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/greens-deal-fatally-compromised-gillard-government-from-the-start-says-tony-abbott/story-fncvk70o-1226581795046

"Mr Abbott said he had not been prepared to make deals with the Greens or independents that were inconsistent with coalition principles following the 2010 election."

But Tony Windsor suggests Mr Abbott's integrity can bend ever so slightly when there is a deal to be done http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K2fRMy5rxuM

Mr Slipper once enjoyed protection under Mr Abbott's cloak of integrity before he took the Speaker's chair.

Mr Abbott's flexible integrity even allows him to gloat at the failure of the introduction of a mining tax, that he opposrd on behalf of the mining barons for who knows what in return, to gather the revenue anticipated.

The Greens did a deal with Labor but won't look around them at what has been achieved in coalition instead of ruing that their absolute demands have been unmet on a every front. Politics is the art of the possible in the face of the forces lined up against you. The Greens should see that that further demands may be possible with a further term of government in coalition but, no, they have to have their tanty and show how mightily principled they are, even when they're not. What a bunch of unreasonable children who want it all and want it now.