Recently the Murdoch rag set the dogs loose with this
headline
"Mining tax will kill industry"
Peter Martin takes a look at the history of taxing miners
Right up until 1991, goldmining was exempt from tax, the only industry with such special status. Bob Hawke squibbed on taxing it in the 1985 tax summit and commissioned an inquiry. As the day of its report grew nearer, the campaign against it reached a crescendo. John Brumby, back then not a premier but the federal member for Bendigo, lobbied to keep it exempt from tax.
A front group, the Australian Gold Mining Industry Council, claimed taxing it would ''stifle the growth of the industry, destroy jobs and slash export earnings''. I conducted repeated radio interviews with its spokesman in which he claimed so in ever-more strident terms. At the time, Australia's gold exports amounted to $1 billion a year. They now exceed $1 billion a month.
Looking back, in a speech in January, Treasury boss Ken Henry said he found it hard to believe that such claims had been made.
Of course that was then, but what about now?
Australia's biggest resource development, the gigantic Gorgon gasfield off Western Australia, got the go-ahead in August, even though its owners knew they would be subject to a 40 per cent offshore resource rent tax.
