Sunday, June 20, 2010

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Open letter to the Minerals Council of Australia


Dear Mitch

Congratulations on your incredibly obtuse response to the RSPT. Your TV commercials are so effective I now change channels as soon as I see that chap pretending to be a concerned player and I am far from being Robinson Crusoe. This will ginger reform of your industry faster than anything the Federal Government does.

Reform of this sector’s tax regime is overdue. The replacement of a royalties regime by a super profits tax is the most efficient way of doing this. By all means argue about the transition arrangements and other structural issues, but by politicizing the Federal Government’s policy response you may have done this industry a disservice.

You can now be assured that every Federal agency and regularity authority with any interest in this industry will be charged to make a forensic analysis of your membership’s operations and financial dealings. I imagine there are some slightly nervous directors out there who had better have their houses in pristine order. You may even see calls for a review of the way mining leases are managed in this country.

I suggest you make the launch of this type of partisan political campaign at your peril. You have now got the complete attention of everyone with a brain that believes this tax reform is necessary.

Probably this is a good thing as it would be excellent to think Australian mining demonstrates world’s best practice in terms of corporate governance and global mining operations.

Good luck with that…

Sunday, June 06, 2010

ABC Insiders give Abbott another free kick

My message to ABC's Insiders today:

"Congratulations on today's political cabaret. Every position adopted by your panel was anti-Rudd. My god, he must be a dreadful person. He obviously does'nt tickle the journos fancy enough. Swearing off-line, golly gosh. Fraser, Hawke & Keating were such paragons of virtue in that area & 'life's a box of chocolates'. My only disappointment is that Hawke & Keating are'nt around to let you lot know a few home truths about your shoddy journalism in 'appropriate' language.

Please, please stop being a paid commercial for Abbott and bastardy inc. and do some cerebral analysis. Your take on the mining tax politics is breathtaking in its superficiality. And, Iemma dudded by Rudd! Keating would have got a giggle out of that. He kicked people from within and without the bastions of the NSW right as a bloodsport.

I for one am happy that Iemma might have got some comeuppance - he certainly dished plenty out. Why are'nt you focused on the backstabbing of Tripodi et al?

The only snippet of Petro's timely valedictory you showed was the joke about Playboy, rather than his take on human rights violations.

Nudge, nudge, wink wink, let's go get a latte and think of more ways to give Abbott our endorsement. If that @#$%^&* becomes PM you lot can take a long look at yourselves because the MSM will have had a huge hand in it, won't they Lenore? (& bonuses all round)...."