While there has been a lot of whining by mining chiefs, and indeed threats to take their ball and run away...I am afraid I just can't believe it.
No one can blame the BHP Billiton chiefs for stating their case (here) but in the end do we really believe that these companies are going to walk away from the El Dorado which is the current Australian mining bonanza. While they may posture, and suggest that dividends may fall....and let's remember that's what is being talked about...not that there will not be great profits...but that the morality of obscene profit is checked by the proposed tax. There will still be great profits...so let's be realistic!!!
The Chinese government is capable of saying...well we won't take your expensive iron ore for two months...and in small economies like ours that makes us freak...but they come back (see here for example)
So let's keep our nerve.
Let's not do what we have so often done. Fritter away our national inheritance and made a few privileged fat cats...even fatter.
Let's start investing in our nation and using some of our national natural heritage to fund the future of the nation, to redress social injustice, and to add not to the girth of the fattest cats around, but rather to the national quality of life.
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