I’ve spent a delightful morning reading all about the fall-out from the mining tax. Both The Australian and the Financial Review have several stories – all critical of the tax and Wayne Swan.
A new meme seems to be developing – it’s not all Gillard and Swan’s fault and things could have been worse. Laurie Oakes tells a version of the story in the Daily Telegraph:
It is claimed that Gillard, Swan and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson conducted the negotiations themselves, and that officials from Treasury – “the ones who really understood the tax being discussed”, said one newspaper report during the week – were shut out of the room.
According to this account, the big three mining companies effectively authored the new tax themselves, and were able to ensure they paid as little as possible. Not surprisingly, Tony Abbott and Co have had great fun with this version of events, at Swan’s expense.
In fact, it is not true that Treasury officials were shut out of the process.
…
Swan’s chief advisers and the number-crunchers from the mining companies assembled in a ground floor room in the Treasury building with all the Treasury experts.Spreadsheets were projected on the wall and discussed line by line. Information was compared and debated. Numbers were run. Assumptions were tested. The session went late into the night. “Exhaustive and exhausting,” is the way one participant describes it.
That may be true – but there is a huge difference between doing some modelling and negotiating the tax design. If true, it simply reinforces my view that Treasury didn’t understand the mining industry. The difficulty I have with this story is that it seems inconsistent with Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson’s testimony to the Senate Estimates committee this week. He told the Senate that Treasury hadn’t known what value the miners would place on their assets. That explanation sounds right – whether it is a reasonable excuse I don’t know – but that suggests the modelling wasn’t as exhaustive and exhausting as suggested.
The second part of the ‘not all Gillard and Swan’s fault and things could have been worse’ argument appears in the AFR.
Industry figures said that had the original Resources Super Profits Tax been implemented, the government would be sending the mining companies cheques rather than lamenting the small income from the Minerals Resource Rent Tax.
Under the RSPT, the government would have had to refund existing state royalties paid by coal companies – including BHP Billiton, Xstrata and Peabody – even though a plunge in coal prices meant they would not have paid any of the super profits tax.
That story is so funny I laughed out loud. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s correct. It assumes that the only reason the MRRT isn’t raising revenue is because of the decline in coal prices. But the reasons are more complex than that – first the miners are depreciating the market value of their assets creating huge depreciation tax shields. Those wouldn’t have been available under the RSPT that was based on historical cost. Then under the RSPT miners paid tax on returns in excess of the risk free rate, and the States wouldn’t have had any incentive to hike up their royalties. So while it is a good story – and very funny – it is probably not correct.
Laurie Oakes defends the ALP? Well blow me down with a feather.
How this joke of a journalist got so high up his profession is beyond reason.
Mattr
16 Feb 13 at 1:02 pm
What is clear is that it has all been a monumental on going stuffup by everybody involved, except of course The Big Miners,i.e. the people Swan once called “liars and fools”.
Rodney
16 Feb 13 at 1:08 pm
Oakes still managed to rope in Rudd’s part in it. I’m surprised he didn’t add Abbott’s name to his fail list.
Splatacrobat
16 Feb 13 at 1:10 pm
The buck stops with that shambolic halfwit installed as our Commonwealth Treasurer.
He called the miners liars and fools. If they are so stupid and greedy, they should be paying up tens and tens of billions of additional taxes right now.
If he wants to cloak himself in the mantle of a economic guru, so be it. All fuck ups will be owned by him. If the shoe fits…
.
16 Feb 13 at 1:11 pm
Businesses know how to run an enterprise.
Bureaucrats know how to shuffle papers.
ALP knows how to insult people.
Guess who is winning?
Oakes is an ALP protected person.
stackja
16 Feb 13 at 1:16 pm
From the day the revised tax was announced by Gillard it was obvious that state governments would raise their royalties to white ant the MRRT. Why on earth wouldn’t they? Especially since Gillard and Treasury had stiffed the mining states on GST revenue. WA will get a third back of what they pay by 2015, the rest’ll go to pay no hope Greens in Tasgaia.
The asset valuation rules are just the cherry on top. Even without them the MRRT would have raised no residue. State Premiers are not fools. They would’ve increased royalty just a little bit more to soak up the difference. And the thoroughly pissed off mining companies would have aided and abetted that.
Bruce
16 Feb 13 at 1:18 pm
Oakes is a dishonest buffoon eaten up with hatred.
C.L.
16 Feb 13 at 1:25 pm
Let me decode this for you.
The corporate thugs running the mining companies have no problem ripping off every man, woman and child in this country.
They have one creed, and it is –
1735099
16 Feb 13 at 1:28 pm
Part of the problem is the refusal to publicly emphasise the industry’s actual, real profits, the dividend rate. BHP for example is about 3% but most seem to be less than this rate. Of course we don’t need our shareholders to be told of our atrocious rate of return on their funds, for they may start asking embarrassing questions.
Oh they already are according to Robin Bromby’s articles in http://www.miningnews.net
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 1:33 pm
Numbers, I’m in the mining business and you are quite, quite wrong. In fact I don’t think you know what you are talking about.
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 1:36 pm
There were media reports in mid 2010 that the mining companies left the meetings with Treasury’s otherwise unemployable public servants shaking their heads at just how dumb and stupid they were (I kept a copy of them because it was so rare to see such seditious reporting).
Comrade Ken Henry The Omniscient – The Formidable! – and his acolytes did not know near enough about mining economics or financials and their work was immature and simplistic.
Of course the miners came through this debacle in good shape – they were negotiating with their own money and their own futures. The gummint underestimated just how effective they are in protecting the potentially juicy steaks they hold.
In my time with evil oil and coal we made sure the then cleverest-est gummint man ever, Allan Fels, was managed similarly.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
16 Feb 13 at 1:38 pm
I work across the Surat basin. The mining companies are ripping the heart out of the country, ruining the communities, and stuffing up the roads. No locals get employed – the workers all come in frrom the coast. The cost of living in Chinchilla, Miles, Roma and Surat is going through the roof.
They’re called terrorists out this way….
1735099
16 Feb 13 at 1:40 pm
So after paying income tax, capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, corporate income tax, GST, payroll taxes, stamp duties, a negative effective rate of protection (basically paying a lot of the tariffs charged on PMVs etc), mineral royalties, mine licences, paying for environmental remediation in advance, fuel excise and earning foreign exchange reserves for the consumers of Australia, employing tens of thousands directly with some of the highest wage rates in the country giving people a chance to get ahead in life, and hundreds of thousands indirectly, with the second highest inter industry multiplier in the national economy, and some of the best funded community programmes and practical and well funded programmes to better remote Aboriginal communities…and then if they pay a small amount of tax on a poorly defined “super profits tax” after all other taxes have been paid, after decade long lead in times from surveying to production of a saleable product, they’re “ripping off every man, woman and child in the country”.
You demented fuckwit numbers.
.
16 Feb 13 at 1:43 pm
I also forgot royalties for regions, but let that smack down number’s demented fuckwittery about miners being called “terrorists” where they operate.
“This man is a terrorist, he is using a truck on an old road, but he’s also paying for a new one to be built”
You really are a small minded fuckwit, numbers.
.
16 Feb 13 at 1:45 pm
You should know by now that Numbers has experience in every area discussed on this here site. He always has some anecdote, some event for all and every profession. He’s done and seen it all.
Gab
16 Feb 13 at 1:46 pm
Perhaps like B.Joyce said, the big 3 multinational miners did a deal with Ms Gillard and Swan to water it down to MRRT and in the process Kevin Rudd had to go, as he wouldn’t budge.
It’s all really fishy the way it happened.
candy
16 Feb 13 at 1:48 pm
I think there’s a fair chance you’re right about that Louis. I’ve worked in the resources and related industries for 15 years now and they do a lot more economic good than harm in Australia.
tbh
16 Feb 13 at 1:48 pm
Thanks Dot – I was going to say that nearly every “political” discussion, which includes those by the complicit journos, goes on as if no taxes were being paid. Such a load of rot.
We expect no sense from numbers, and Sinc should ban him as a pollution amelioration measure. What is this, a shop window for demonstrating just how demented some people are?
blogstrop
16 Feb 13 at 1:50 pm
Numbers, under the existing state mining environmental regulations and mining management protocols, that’s not possible these days. We are regulated to an inch of our lives with respect to safety and environmental compliance and it costs a fortune to comply. In fact in the NT compliance is being ramped up. We are forced every year to perform flora and fauna surveys, keep all stakeholders informed of our operations, etc etc etc.’
But I am getting used to dealing with lefties living in a parallel universe where up is down and white is black – it’s your inherent tendency to fabricate your realities that’s probably the cause of your ignorance.
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 2:03 pm
Dot,
Is that all we have to pay, surely you might have missed something?
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 2:09 pm
I believe the mining industry pays >40% in various taxes, much of which goes into the GST pool and gets distributed to other states.
Gab
16 Feb 13 at 2:13 pm
Oh for Cripes sake!
The lifelong taxpayer funded trough slurping, otherwise unemployable public servant – from a family of lifelong taxpayer funded trough slurpers – is now an expert on mining.
Louis Hissink and Dot are quite correct in their summary of the sour old communist goat.
As it happens, like Louis Hissink, I earned some of my quid terrorising and “ripping the heart out of” rural communities (including the Surat), who have many times since welcomed me back as a trusted business friend.
Mining offers exceptional opportunity to vast numbers of directly and indirectly engaged unskilled workers, contractors, tradesmen and professionals. They get to buy their homes and to educate their children (at decent schools with properly trained teachers) and to secure their financially independent futures. There are businesses and public facilities and infrastructure in the Bowen Basin, the Surat Basin and the Hunter which would not otherwise exist. All of that is incontestable.
Now read about, and do try to understand, “the industry’s actual, real profits, the dividend rate”. Then read a development consent for a mine, with its hundreds of conditions and reporting obligations – better still, sit in the corner over there and watch an expert negotiate them during the years it takes to do that. No, don’t bother – you’re much better suited remaining at the bottom end of the food chain.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
16 Feb 13 at 2:17 pm
I confidently predict innumerate will return armed with his dictionary and his two way calibrated phraseology sniper rifle, in which he is an expert, to dissect the intelligent comments, facts and data presented here.
He will not directly debate the comments, facts and data.
Warriorship in a long forgotten war will arise, as will personal victimness.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
16 Feb 13 at 2:32 pm
No doubt I probably have. At best I’ve just made educated guesses about mining.
.
16 Feb 13 at 2:36 pm
Oh, and we can’t include the mandatory brown paper bag tax, then. Damn these secret taxes.
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 2:41 pm
How can this story not be correct, Sinclair?
It was in the AFR! You know, a ‘quality journalism’ publication from Fairfax. Fairfax would never print a story that supported the Labor Party that wasn’t true.
That would like they had favorites or something. That’s what the evil Murdoch empire or nasty shock jocks do. Not the love media.
Johno
16 Feb 13 at 2:43 pm
To be fair to numbers a lot of people don’t understand taxation or accounting or capital budgeting. The notion that depreciation is an expense deductible for taxation purposes is new to them.
Sinclair Davidson
16 Feb 13 at 2:45 pm
This is just puerile.
Come on numbers, lift your game. You can do better than this!
We really do need to get a better class of troll at the Cat. This is really embarrassing.
Johno
16 Feb 13 at 2:49 pm
Martin Parkinsons Senate testimony reminded me of the Irishmans response to a travel inquiry,”I wouldnt be going there from here”. Martin, what value do you think the miners put on their assets?. Job ad in Canberra Times, accounts clerk, might be a bit advanced for you. Is this who swanny gets his advice from.
johninoxley
16 Feb 13 at 2:51 pm
I can think of no good reason, Sinclair, to be that.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
16 Feb 13 at 2:55 pm
I don’t think the government ever planned on mailing cheques out to the mining companies under the original MSPT.
When the Wombat Whisperer deigned to attend Senate Estimates to explain to us mortals how to suck eggs, he explained it would be an intangible asset that the banks would lend against. Once the banks picked themselves up off the floor and stopped laughing, it was apparent this wasn’t going to happen in the non-Treasury universe.
H B Bear
16 Feb 13 at 2:57 pm
I wouldn’t worry to much about what 17 etc says.
He tells fibs.
Here is a cut and paste from his website recounting his car selling experience:
“Probably because in the ad [for the vehicle]I used a sales pitch that I was too old to get in and out of the vehicle. This is complete bunkum, but it may have created the impression of an easily scammed old dodderer”.
HRT
16 Feb 13 at 3:04 pm
The problem with Oakes’ story is that it fails to mention the crucial fact that Gillard boasted that she “stamped her authority” on the negotiations. She was happy to take full credit then, so she must take full blame now. End of story.
Milton von Smith
16 Feb 13 at 3:06 pm
Which is a gross failure of the education system. Schools are full of teachers instructing on interpretative dance and other bollocks but nowhere does anyone teach a full understanding of the tax system. It should be mandatory for students to spend a semester of this stuff in hugh school, with another semester spent on finance and investment, particularly as it pertains to mortgages, insurance and superannuation. The super system turns everyone into a long term investor, but the average person has less understanding of that than they do the road rules. It’s an invitation for the retail finance and union super industries to fleece individuals, an invitation they have been taking up with glee for several decades.
brc
16 Feb 13 at 3:13 pm
I think it is a wonderful thing that the A.L.P. are doing for the disabled.
They found the comically innumerate Wayne Swan a quiet little sheltered workshop job that keeps him off the streets and won’t frighten the sheep. All this “rocket science” stuff like arithmetic, is all Greek to him.
The semi-literate Prime Spin-ster, Juliar Gillard was in ‘high dungeon’ and was about to let fly with some choice ‘hyperbowl’, when she was found another little sinecure job that doesn’t require any honesty, integrity, competence, elocution or truthfulness.
Dr. Emo is on the prowl looking for any signs of incompetence or stupidity on the A.L.P. front bench, but after swallowing both of Juliar’s contact lenses from the glass on her bedside table, he STILL couldn’t see any stupidity.
Big Bill Ludwig’s Short Willy, the “Minister for Employment of his Relation in the Workplace”, has successfully acquired himself a mother-in-law and has her ensconced in a nice little granny flat at Yarralumla. (Though if the dear old battle-axe wants him to buy her a meat pie for her tea, she might be waiting a while!).
The best performing member in the A.L.P. camp, is Bloviator-General, McTernan. He operates around the clock writing all the scripts for the “7.00pm National A.L.P. Views”; Faux-facts; Laurie Oafs; Paul Bung-Journo; Mark Riley; Hugh Rimmerton; the A.L.P.B.C.’s “Hateline”, “One-Siders” and “7.30 Report”; Channel 10′s “Meet the Toadies”, AND he does the hourly text of the A.L.P.’s “two-minute-hate” sessions of “AbbottAbbottAbbott”.
With such a band of geniuses at the helm, how could we possibly go wrong?
Up The Workers!
16 Feb 13 at 3:15 pm
he explained it would be an intangible asset that the banks would lend against
I didn’t even get to the punchline, I thought that WAS the punchline.
.
16 Feb 13 at 3:20 pm
Just a minor correction.
I reckon that nice Mr Wong at least has one thing going for him… loyalty to the little woman. The rest of them seem to be immoral types, at first glance.
mct
16 Feb 13 at 5:12 pm
They’re called terrorists out this way….
And the other half of your town thinks mining companies are the best thing since sliced bread and canned beer and want more of them.
Admittedly CSG has got off to a bad start. Watch that change when the wider farming community starts making money from it.
John Mc
16 Feb 13 at 5:40 pm
numbers (Robert) you must have been asleep during
the Whitlam treasonous term & allowed yourself to be thoroughly brainwashed by that brainless idiot goose. He together with McTurd would make a pretty sight being chased out of town by a rock throwing mob of school kids. I’d have expected more from a nasho who was treated like shit by labor!
maurie
16 Feb 13 at 5:56 pm
Laurie Oakes has credibility? Sorry he spent it long ago. Still among the tears I shed for my county there is a lighter side if the pretenders are seen as clowns in a nightmare.
Maggie
16 Feb 13 at 5:57 pm
Picking up Candy’s comment at 1:48 PM, the recent SBS series on Australian mining made the same point.
According to the producers of that program, the evil mining companies have a history of corrupt dealings with Australian governments, their most recent involvement was to remove Rudd from the Prime Ministership.
If this is correct, and the Gillard – Swan team took over at the behest of the evil mining companies, then we may have an explanation for the tax-free mining tax.
Could Swan’s tax-free mining tax be a dud for reasons other than Swan’s incompetence?
old bloke
16 Feb 13 at 6:25 pm
old bloke
Like I said, the buck stops with the shambolic Swan.
The miners do not sit in Parliament and cannot vote on legislation, regardless of any machinations between Bill Ludwig and Mitch Hooke.
.
16 Feb 13 at 6:30 pm
old bloke, I don’t think anyone in the mining industry would have preferred a Gillard-Swann to Rudd-Swann team – either would have financially tried to rape us.
I can’t comment on the SBS documentary as I don’t watch the SBS or the ABC.
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 6:41 pm
Ah, Lorry-load. What a player you are. History is there to be re-written.
Septimus
16 Feb 13 at 6:49 pm
I liked Latham’s appellation better, Jabba the Hutt
Louis Hissink
16 Feb 13 at 7:47 pm
Still waiting for the Benny Hill chase as Swan tries to rip the pockets off Twiggy Forrest.
Philippa Martyr
16 Feb 13 at 7:53 pm
Laurie Oakes…is a fucking cane toad.
.
16 Feb 13 at 7:57 pm
The profitability of mining companies is kind of crap. Sorry Numbers. ‘night night.
wreckage
16 Feb 13 at 8:21 pm
naw, its’ the belief that economies and businesses are themselves fabricated, and can be fabricated at will.
wreckage
16 Feb 13 at 8:25 pm
“Anybody here know what this means?”
“Anybody here worked in private industry?”
“Wayne, do you have any idea?”
“Hang on, I’ll call Bill Ludwig. He usually tells me what to do.”
“Anyone still have that Wombat guy’s number?”
And so on …
H B Bear
16 Feb 13 at 8:35 pm
FTFY, dot!
Mk50 of Brisbane
16 Feb 13 at 8:42 pm
Aaaah, the imbecilitariat is again burbling quietly in the corner. Now, remember, Numbers is in Toowoomba, OK? As you’ll see on this map, the nearest mine to brave Sir Numbers de Leftard is… Oakey. Thats what, 30km away from Brave Sir Numbers.
Most of the mines are between Calby and Chinchilla, which are a long way from His Bravitude. That’s important – think ‘house prices’ here folks.
The biggest bitch about the Surat basin boom in Toowoomba is that they are missing out on the increase in house prices.
Now, let me fisk Brave Sir Numbers de Leftard.
Hang on, has not His Bravitude said he’s retired? But now he ‘works across teh basin’? What, all the way to Mitchell, west of Roma?
Doing what?
This is the usual high-strung emotive horse-puckey of teh classic leftard. Remember, this are is what it is due to the cattle boom and cotton booms. Did these ‘rip the heart out of teh coutnry’? Of course not, the did provide gainful employment, though.
Are local communities stressed due to wirker inflows and strain on infrastructure? yes they are – I am out in this area a lot. I deal with many and varied people, including teh councils and yes, they sing this song. They also point to loads of new works funded by teh companies under their community programs, the very low unemployment of the locals (especially the young – who are STAYING THERE now instead of fleeing to Brisbane in search of work, and the sky-high wages. Yes, there are some bad side effects – and the locals understand them, yet they also say that the good massively outweighs the bad. Oh, and the farmers mostly like gas exploitation, it’s mostly cattle grazing country and there’s a hell of a lot of it.
Straight out lie. I was coming thru Roma airport a couple of weeks back and had a chat to a woman I vaguely recognised. She’s a part time security type now, earning twice what she did in the fish and chip shop for half the hours! Both her kids have come back from the Gold Coast, the younger is driving a truck for one company and the other is a mechanic of some sort.
Straight out lie. The companies prefer locals (great for community relations) but there simply are not enough of ‘em. The rest they DO bring in from outside. many like teh area and want to bring in their families. The Council at Roma is over the moon with this as the popualtion outflow has reversed!
Lie. The cost of HOUSING is going thru the roof and making long-term locals rich. The are not stupid and know full well that life is not all beer and skittles, so yes, local infrastructure is under strain. But the money is flowing in to improve it. They are living in the lag and they know full well what’s happening in Longreach and Moranbah, where the council and the companies partner and address this issue. Go look at Longreach! A few years back teh main street was a third vacant. Now every single shopfront has a shop and business is booming (employing locals) and the town centre rehabilitation is in full swing. Longreach looks fantastic, all new footpaths and fresh paint.
Only by drooling f**kwits whoa re unhappy that their own house prices in Toowoomba have not gone up as much as Roma’s or Moranbah’s. Oh, wait…
Mk50 of Brisbane
16 Feb 13 at 9:07 pm
Cripes. My spelling is awful. Sorry.
Mk50 of Brisbane
16 Feb 13 at 9:08 pm
My local town would be a ghost town if it weren’t for miners, who provide employment to all and sundry, also providing the impetus for new housing developments – unheard of! – kept businesses open through the drought, and tipped a lot of funds into rejuvenating the town’s parks, opening a preschool, and stuff like that.
wreckage
16 Feb 13 at 9:46 pm
Numbers is full of it.
Over the years, my practice in and out of government, has taken me up & down the coast of Qld and occasionally out west. I always like to try & walk around whatever town I am in to get a feel for the health of the place.
Recently I traveled to Dalby which is pretty much the next town out from Numbersville if you are traveling to Roma et al. No empty shops. Lots of activity/wealth. Yeh terrorists you taxeating bludger.
On behalf of working Australians let me just say: Bite me.
Just Another Bloody Lawyer
16 Feb 13 at 10:16 pm
Too right Mk50, give yourself an uppercut!
What you wrapped it around though is accurate.
On the first part of it – in the Hunter the local activists opposing mining are invariably those whose property falls outside the mining areas. The closer they are to the boundary the more vociferous they become.
On the odd occasion when the miner has decided later in the piece to create a wider buffer zone for one reason or another, and to buy them out, they disappear from the airwaves just as a puff of smoke on the wind.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
16 Feb 13 at 11:10 pm
@Mk 50
Really?
Last week I worked in Miles, Roma, and Injune – was supposed to get to St George, but couldn’t, because the Balonne was up at Surat. Next week it’s Charleville, Augathella, Cunnamulla and St George again. Most of these places are a bloody long way from Toowoomba, where I do own property, but to be honest, I have no idea what it’s worth – no do I care. It’s our family home – not a financial asset.
I’m more concerned with capital growth on my Brisbane property.
Oakey, incidentally, is slightly closer to Toowoomba than Felton, a coal mine which has closed down the nearby township, covered everything within cooee with coal dust, and sent quite a few neighbouring farmers (who’ve been working the land for generations) broke in a hurry. Just ask the Parrot (Alan Jones) about it. He periodically travels to Toowoomba and flaps his feathers, but none of the locals take a blind bit of notice.
I’ve been bored with retirement for years and am involved in iterant work when I feel like it. At the moment I feel like it.
None of your bloody business.
You were obviously more pissed than usual when you wrote this, but I think you’re trying to say that the mining “boom” (great choice of words – because it has had an explosively destructive effect on these communities) is similar in nature to the benefits created by the cattle and cotton industry out this way. In saying that, you’re demonstrating your abject ignorance of this area. The farming industries create community – mining destroys community. There’s nothing like the influx of hundreds of bogans from the coast who spend their money when they fly home, except for what they invest in booze and prostitutes locally, to stuff a township thoroughly. And when they do leave for good, what remains is bloody great holes in the ground, a residue of poison (both chemical and social), and rusted metal.
About the only accurate statement in your whole post, but I’m not sure what breed of local a “wirker”is.
Name one….
I work with High Schools in Roma, St George and Goondiwindi, and high school tops in Wandoan, Taroom and Cunnamulla.
There are a few mining based apprenticeships in Roma, to keep the community quiet, but nothing in any of the other places, except for one job for a kid from Wandoan. It’s all spin – no results. The really high earning jobs require qualifications that you have to head east to acquire. You might pick up a job working casual for a contractor, if you’re lucky, but there’s no security, no quality of life, and no long term future. Mining culture is about making a quick quid, using as little money as possible, and getting out.
Bullshit. The mining companies prefer their own kind who essentially come from east or south. They wouldn’t piss on the locals, and avoid them socially. They won’t employ locally unless actually forced to do so.
I would have thought the cost of housing is a critical component of the cost of living. Teachers, coppers, nurses and doctors can no longer afford to live in these communities. The problems recruiting staff in these agencies are ten times greater than they were 10 years ago. I’ve been working out here since 2005, and the trend is clear.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 1:40 pm
BTW – just checked house prices with my Real Estate agent mate I went to school with at Nambour High.
We’re doing very nicely, thank you.
Thanks for the tip…..
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 1:40 pm
Numbers, the high qualification entry is a result of the trade unions ensuring that only “credentialed” workers get employment. A latter day variation of the closed shop, or the closed credential these days.
Sky-rising costs? Maate, it’s you maates who are causing it with the raft of OS&H and Environmental compliance costs, together with the feather bedding that has returned under OS&H regulations.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 1:49 pm
What a repulsive load of bullshit.
Fuck off.
.
17 Feb 13 at 1:52 pm
Oakey, incidentally, is slightly closer to Toowoomba than Felton, a coal mine which has the nearby township, covered everything within cooee with coal dust, and sent quite a few neighbouring farmers (who’ve been working the land for generations) broke in a hurry.
Bullshit you lying fuck. Oakey is doing extremely well. Name one thing that has closed down because of the coal mine.
There is concern in Oakey about the coal mine coming closer to the down. While plenty of locals don’t have concerns there is a general agreement to err on the side of prudence and prevent the mine coming any closer overall. The general concern about coal dust is a just a valid caution and it’s mostly moved to the trains that pass through Oakey.
As for the locals not liking the mine, plenty of them either work for the mine or wish they were working for the mine. And plenty of landowners are perfectly happy with the mine renting their land. And plenty of renters are perfectly happy getting cheap rent from properties owned by the mine but not being used.
There is no great objection against the mine in Oakey except somewhat valid discussions about how close it should be allowed to come to the town which everyone is largely agreeing upon. There is, however, a much more active movement against mining in Felton, but even if there is no mine or no processing plant built there (and I’d agree that a lot of that is beautiful land that we should consider preserving (in private hands) and protecting) CSG will get there and be widely accepted when the locals start making money from it.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 1:55 pm
Perhaps there’s some holes left in the ground, but thank God for the resources and the miners who dig it up.
We’d almost be a third world country without it.
candy
17 Feb 13 at 1:57 pm
numbers, not Louis…
.
17 Feb 13 at 1:57 pm
Dot, I knew that
though sometimes others post here and it’s a bit of a task trawling the history to make sense of the comment.
That said, perhaps numbers would have expressed a similar sentiment.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 2:01 pm
@John Mc
I was writing about Felton – not Oakey. You must have learned to read at Toowoomba Grammar.
Been to Felton lately?
You need to get out of town more often. You won’t fall of the edge if you go west of Charlton.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:08 pm
Oakey is west of Charleton you goose. I’ve been known to spend a bit of time there.
What has closed down in Felton?
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:12 pm
Perhaps there’s some holes left in the ground,
You should see the coal mine at Oakey. You would not know there had been mining under much of the restored land there.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:23 pm
@Louis Hissink
Ther best metaphor for the attitude of the miners and their fly-by-night contractors was played out in front of me in broad daylight last year.
I was driving on a job from Miles to Taroom, Between Wondoan and Taroom on the Leichhardt Highway, I crested a rise to find the road blocked by a mining rig and escort. The rig was wide and low, and there was a row of guide posts each side of the road for kilometres. The rig was progresivelly breaking these (plastic) guideposts one by one as it crawled along. There was a trial of broken posts for three kilometres.
The contractors obviously weren’t bothered.
I did my days work and was on my way back to Miles on the return trip when I encountered the same rig and crew refuelling. Whilst filling the car, I made reference to the guideposts to the foreman who was standing next to me on the diesel bowser.
His response?
“These fuckwits out here are too thick to notice” – he said
“We couldn’t give a stuff – we’ll be back in Dubbo by the time the shit hits the fan.
Pretty much sums up the attitude to the locals held by most out here in mining….
It’s my tax dollar paying for the wrecked infrastructure, and these thugs won’t pay their dues.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:23 pm
I have also seen the rural idyll of my youth destroyed by multinational corporations, wealthy interlopers, rampant traffic growth, “FIFO” and spiraling property prices. What was once a small and pleasant community where you could live for nothing has turned into a disaster area of greed, property speculation and unchecked growth. Good crop and grazing country has been ruined forever. People complain about being poisoned by chemicals.
I refer of course to the Yallingup-Dunsburough-Margaret River area. The hippies and surfers were pushed out over the last 30 years by doctors, lawyers and accountants from Perth wanting holiday homes in the area or a winery. Property prices went from nothing to millions of dollars. The newcomers operate as FIFO – work in Perth all week, weekend down south.
The small farms that were originally cleared by soldier-settlers a few generations ago have been converted into meditation retreats, eco-resorts, vineyards, golf courses and tracts of holiday homes. The original small wineries have been steadily bought out by multinational conglomerates.
In my youth, you could bomb down the backroads at 100mph, knowing you’d almost never see another vehicle. With the massive influx of tourists and retirees, the single lane roads clogged up and the extensive gravel roads fell to bits.
Those that planted grapes miles from town 30 years ago now find themselves on the edge of the urban sprawl, and they’re in constant conflict with the newcomers who scream “cancer” every time they spray their grapes for mould and bugs.
Lots of jobs have gone to interlopers rather than locals – ie, overseas backpackers picking fruit and tradies making a good buck building chalets, retirement homes and art galleries.
The qualities that made the place so charming in the first place have been destroyed. The social fabric that I knew as a teenager has been torn to shreds. But that’s progress.
boy on a bike
17 Feb 13 at 2:26 pm
@ John Mc
Try Acland - although the war memorial is still there.
Looks like Felton has been saved – in the short term at least. Constant vigilance, is necessary, however, with the likes of you living close by.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:29 pm
Numbers if full of shit, as usual.
You can actually tell the mining vehicles around here. They’ll be the white utes driving exactly at the speed limit, acting with extreme courtesy around town, giving way to everyone.
Within my profession I have overseen the rise of OH&S/WH&S within industry in this country. I can tell you the resources companies have done more for protecting workers by instilling a safety culture and advancing safety engineering than unions or just about any other entity has every done.
Here’s a story about a mining company destroying the environment for you:
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8572548
LIZ HAYES: The team laid their artificial malleefowl trap, and waited.
CHRIS: Here he comes.
LIZ HAYES: And they got some unexpected results.
CHRIS: The first truck stopped. And I had to go out and meet him. And I was wondering if I was going to get beaten up, actually. Good for you, mate. Good effort. Well done, thank you so much. That is just fantastic. I really appreciate it. I know you’re working bloody hard, to have to stop. I really appreciate what you did.
DRIVER: I thought, well, if it’s alive –
CHRIS: So, mate, can I ask you a question? Did the mining company tell you to be careful of the malleefowl?
DRIVER: Yeah.
CHRIS: They did?
DRIVER: Yeah.
CHRIS: Great.
DRIVER: We never see them, but, other than the curiosity.
LIZ HAYES: In fact, the mining company’s truck driver knew all about stopping for the malleefowl. But would they all be so careful?
CHRIS: The second truck did a beautiful piece of driving, and just avoided the bird entirely. And the third truck did an elegant manoeuvre, and again missed the bird. Experiment done, faith in conservation restored, Chris got out of there. But it got him thinking. If an Australian truck driver could learn to stop to let an endangered species cross the road, who else could he convince?
CHRIS: I didn’t expect the truck drivers to care as much as they clearly did, and if you can get truck drivers in Western Australia to care about the natural world, maybe you can get millions of people to care about the natural world. So I’m off to America, where I’m going to bicycle across America, I’m going to undertake a PR campaign for mother nature.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:33 pm
New Hope bought out nearly all of Acland over many years. This was only possible because the town was declining economically. No one was forced to leave their property, they voluntarily sold.
As a pretty little town that Acland is/was, what was the loss here?
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:37 pm
John Mc
As I have said before on this thread –
So Acland, all its memories, all its community, all its history is buried under coal.
The war memorial is pretty much all that remains. Give it time – that too will be obliterated, along with the dignity of the memory of those who have their names inscribed.
I wonder how many dollars each of their lives was worth?
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:43 pm
Numbers, with the sole exception of Felton none of those protest community groups have traction or support across the broader community. In most cases the locals wish they were working for the company in question.
But you’re in luck, Felton has been saved by a fine, upstanding, almost revolutionary premier who I’m sure you support. You can see his smiling face right (…..of centre, hahaha) there on your link:
http://www.fof.org.au
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:46 pm
Decoded – Nobody was prepared to live a few hundred metres from coal dust, machinery, and toxic smells.
Voluntarily?
About as voluntary as conscription, or Newman’s redundancies.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:46 pm
Numbers, this is a blog, not you personal creative writing forum. Take your bullshit elsewhere you oxygen bandit.
If you must make up fanciful stories, take it to the Open Forum which has become chock full of them of late.
Infidel tiger
17 Feb 13 at 2:46 pm
Yea Spuds.. Fuck right off.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 2:50 pm
Decoded – Nobody was prepared to live a few hundred metres from coal dust, machinery, and toxic smells.
People do work there every day y’know. And mining people stay in and around Acland every day as well. There is one local still hanging on there I believe, as well.
As much as I believe every one’s little town is special, Acland was hardly a national treasure and the community was better off with the mine being there.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 2:51 pm
“There’s nothing like the influx of hundreds of bogans from the coast who spend their money when they fly home, except for what they invest in booze and prostitutes locally”
perhaps that’s a little culturally insensitive ?
I reckon there are lots of blokes making good money (and ladies too) at the mines and taking care of family.
candy
17 Feb 13 at 2:52 pm
Back in the early 1960s, the Margaret River-Augusta area was so poverty stricken, dad was regularly paid in kind with chickens and things like that.
Thanks to the entire area being ripped apart and rebuilt as a winery/tourism/retirement hub (which has utterly destroyed the place that I knew as a kid – might as well have nuked the place), the grandkids of those broken down, busted-arse settler farmers are now driving 2 nice cars, have a boat in front of the McMansion and holiday several times a year in Bali.
boy on a bike
17 Feb 13 at 2:52 pm
Moderator:
Any chance of clearing the decks of all this leftist goonery on weekends.
Here’s a suggestion. Ban all the fuckers from say midday Saturday to midnight Sunday so that way the rest of us can have good solid discussions without these air-bandits filling up the spaces with shit we don’t have a need to read.
Jc
17 Feb 13 at 2:53 pm
Margaret River/Dunsborough is a toilet. May as well stay in the western suburbs. You’ll see the same people.
If you want a 3 hour trip for some fun and relaxation you head to Bali. Sure you’ll see the same people, but at least you’ll eat some decent food at a reasonable price.
Infidel tiger
17 Feb 13 at 2:56 pm
@ John Mc
What “community”?
It no longer exists.
What insufferable arrogance!
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 2:58 pm
A mining Rig large enough to knock down the white guide posts? And from Dubbo? Subcontractors delivering some plant in other words. Well numbers, that’s nothing to do with the mining industry – Any large plant that is overwidth has to be accompanied by police escort – which suggests to me its the usual NSW cowboy factor you observed, rather than the mining industry per se. We don’t allow such idiocy to occur.
I’m almost tempted to suggest you fabricated it all.
And what is a mining rig? Catepillar tracks driven? On a public gazetted road? Without escorts and police.
No, don’t think so.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 2:58 pm
And deny one the entertainment of watching innumerate the surly commo huffing and puffing and lying grandly, while he gets his regular hiding when he visits here?
Mick Gold Coast QLD
17 Feb 13 at 3:00 pm
What “community”? It no longer exists.
The one we live in. Some people still work for a living y’know. But you’ve probably forgot that not everyone works for the government.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 3:01 pm
@ Louis Hissink
Oh yeah – the old familiar refrain – it was the contractor.
If you don’t like it – go into denial. It’s typical behaviour on this blog.
1735099
17 Feb 13 at 3:03 pm
Actually Acland was a shithole, and I know a few people from there. They left town years ago, because of the fact it was a shithole. I even bought a grissley pie there once.
And Felton is full of marginal producers fantasising about how they are the engine drivers of the economy, it is just they never get to make any money.
You can bet numbers doesn’t live in a town like Acland, or Oakey for that matter. His kind wouldn’t live in a town any smaller than say, Toowoomba, at a guess. You need a certain critical mass just to to be able to cohabit with types like that.
entropy
17 Feb 13 at 3:04 pm
Numbers, it’s safe to say that you know naught of what you speak concerning the mining industry. The mining industry has pretty strict policies on implementing OS&H and safety procedures, and a rig that large would have to have escorts, police and anything else we suspect the lawyers from hell could hit us with. And contractors know that as well. Actually the police would never have allowed them to run over the white guide posts. The shire rangers would have gone apeshit over that.
No, son, stick to your knitting – you are waay out of your depth on this one.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 3:09 pm
Louis Hissink – you know the road authority rules about plant traveling along highways, escorts, timing and such, I know them too (having managed it) and I say you are so tempted with good reason.
As for this bit:
It most assuredly did not happen. He wouldn’t have the ticker.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
17 Feb 13 at 3:14 pm
Well the story with the clowns delivering the drilling rig is possible, but if true imagine how pissed the CSG company would have been with the way its equipment was treated. And what was the copper escort doing?
entropy
17 Feb 13 at 3:16 pm
It most assuredly did not happen. He wouldn’t have the ticker.
That story was most definitely bullshit. You can bet the driver, who may or may not have done it, was working out how he was going to explain it. Not gobbing off.
John Mc
17 Feb 13 at 3:18 pm
If you must lie Numbers at least make the story plausible.
Infidel Tiger
17 Feb 13 at 3:18 pm
And if not Toowoomba, then a Tara blocky.
entropy
17 Feb 13 at 3:20 pm
Entropy,
Drilling rig? Most of those are legal width wise, and all fit on the legal floats, so this machine had to be overwidth making it either a dump truck, loader, etc – one of them thar big yella mothers we use in them thaar pits. (Or if its a Leibherr it would be white).
Another instance of the left fabricating reality and then denouncing us for rejecting it by labelling us deniers. And why do these clowns post here anyway? JC’s suggestion is not on – we have to have our weekend blood sport.
Louis Hissink
17 Feb 13 at 3:25 pm
… which is the case in most of the mining areas in the Eastern States.
The small holdings are typically of poor quality, fetch way more than their utility value when the miner comes to buy them and is returned, under modern rehabilitation conditions of consent, to a higher grade of pasture than that which previously existed.
The larger land holdings make their arrangements well before the mine works commence. Likely mine locations are well known by local residents for decades before exploration licences are granted – there are few surprises. The key properties are secured under options to purchase negotiated between willing vendors and willing purchasers, exercised upon grant of the mining lease. They depart happy (or stay on as lessee on a peppercorn rent until their holding is programmed for stripping).
The time and effort put into building credibility and trust in the communities is extraordinary.
The noise from these redundant rural centres comes from the marginal holdings not included in the mine lease area, as I have previously outlined.
Incidentally, when one is negotiating with any of these parties a common question is “My son/husband/nephew has his dragline/truck licence – can you help with employment when work commences?”
Mick Gold Coast QLD
17 Feb 13 at 3:35 pm
numbers is now an expert on mining now, except that his facts are all incorrect.
Entire towns covered in coal dust, people unable to pay rent, no jobs, destroyed infrastructure?
Absolute horseshit. Chinchilla could not sustain tourism and being a horticulture hub like that.
.
17 Feb 13 at 3:59 pm
Numbers’ Toilet is what this place is becoming.
Goodnight.
blogstrop
17 Feb 13 at 8:36 pm
That never happened. The only reference to this story on the internet is on catallaxy. It made the news, nowhere.
.
18 Feb 13 at 2:23 pm
@noname
In Charleville tonight – detoured through Wandoan on the way and drove down the same piece of road where I witnessed this incident. Guide posts repaired – I wonder who paid?
Noname lives in a parallel universe where if it isn’t on the internet it didn’t happen – a kind of alternative virtual reality.
No wonder the pollies employ spin merchants.
Get out of the burbs and get a life…..
1735099
18 Feb 13 at 6:51 pm
No one, because it never happened.
No, you live in a parallel universe where the only time you saw a gun at school was when your army buddy showed a bunch of disabled kids (was he a gun wanker?) a military rifle and at the same time, you were threatened by a parent with a handgun.
You mean, like move to Toowoomba and make shit up?
.
18 Feb 13 at 6:53 pm
“make shit up”
Mate, you do it so often it’s become your version of reality.
And whilst Toowoomba isn’t the centre of the universe, we draw the line at delusional Glibertarians.
1735099
18 Feb 13 at 7:06 pm
Numbers caught out lying yet again. How unusual. How about some superhero stories big life saving man. You hero
Tiny Dancer
18 Feb 13 at 7:14 pm
That definitely would have gotten into the press somewhere, and nearly all publishers are online these days.
No story like this can be found.
What a made up load of rotten pigshit this story is.
.
18 Feb 13 at 7:19 pm
You’re such a deplorable ignoramus, Spuds.
Jc
18 Feb 13 at 7:20 pm
My dog chased a bluetongue today. I could have made it unhappen by not publishing it on this blog, or anywhere else on the internet.
I published it here, so it happened.
The above is a fine example of Catallaxian logic.
Hilarious….
1735099
18 Feb 13 at 7:29 pm
Brave Sir Numbers de Racist:
I am calling bullsh*t on this one. A ‘mining rig’ (which is what, exactly, Brave Sir Numbers?) with is overlapping both sides of the road? That’s definitely over 2.5m, which is the max width for an infivisible load that does not need a permit. So the movement falls under Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995 Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Mass, Dimensions and Loading) Regulation 2005, parts 5 and 6. And if they WERE breaking the safety markers, then they were committing an offence under para 45 and 46 (see p.34-35 of the legislation). Oh, BTW, the penalty for each incidence of damage done to road infrastructure by operating witout a permit (and each post counts as such) is 80PU = $13,600 each. A 3km trail of them is bankruptcy time.
You are seriously treying to tell us that any company will take this level of risk to save the admin hassle of putting in a permit app and movement plan?
BULLSH*T.
Or you can give me a date and I’ll check with TMR (we work with them, QPS and other entities all the time) and I’ll ask to see their permit.
So, sunshine, report this to QPS with date, location and all the details you remember, and they will be very happy indeed to investigate.
But I look at this rubbish and say yeah, Brave Sir Numbers de Racist is making up tall tales again. It’s what he does.
Sunshine, we did not come down in the last shower, and are not gullible lefties who swallow your fantasies blindly.
Mk50 of Brisbane
18 Feb 13 at 8:38 pm
Hmm. There’s only four mining connies in Dubbo big enough to hire for a job like that, too.
G & M Civil & Construction, Eastern Mechanical Services Pty Ltd, Hutchins Heavy Industries and TCT Construction.
Eastern Mech are pretty much strictly local alds (as in NSW) and all four are swamped with work south of the border.
More evidence that Brave Sir Numbers de Racist is inventing tall tales. Again. Notice too how HE is the centre of his tale?
Wonder how many leftards have fallen for his bullsh*t stories over the years?
I’m thinking, ‘all of them’.
Mk50 of Brisbane
18 Feb 13 at 8:50 pm
@mk50
Your infivisible (sic) load has as much credibility as your quoting of rules and regs. The difference between what should be and what is increases the further you get from Brisbane. Report it to the QPS? You’ve got to be kidding. Queensland has regressed to the police state it was back in the days of the old crook, Jo Bjelke-Petersen. Any report like that would have every copper from Toowoomba to Cunnamulla stalking my rego every time I left home, given the rig was under police escort at the time, and no action taken.
1735099
18 Feb 13 at 8:54 pm
Brave Sir Numbers, how the tale changes when you are called on your bullsh*t!
So the load you described had to be over 2.5m width.
Had to be according to your description.
Now you have confirmed this:
OK, they get a police escort when they move large loads on public roads – that’s a clear indication that they had complied (as any sensible connie does) with the TOA 95 requirements. There’s also an inspector ith moves like this to manage safety and assess damage – he was the bloke in the white Hilux with ‘TMR’ on the side. His REAL job, of course, is to provide coverage against legal liability through strict obedience to the safety regs.
So, assuming for a second that you actually did see a movement like this and did see damage being inflicted (which I do not believe for an instant because those flexi-poles have a bend radius of 6″, so the load had to be LESS than 6″ off the ground to snap them), then the people who paid for restoration work was the connie doing the move, with that cost worked out beforehand and included in the price charged to the company. But none of that suited your wailing narrative about da eebils of capitalism, did it comrade?
So, you mendacious tool, you have just confirmed that if your story actually occurred you deliberately lied about it to the people on this site. The other alternative is that you simply made it up, and are now trying to lie your way out of it.
Gotcha!
Caught you in a deliberate lie no matter which way you spin.
Aaaah, left-wing morons who believe their own bullsh*t. So easy to catch them in their lies.
Mk50 of Brisbane
18 Feb 13 at 9:08 pm
The detail in the original fable has now been augmented.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
18 Feb 13 at 9:15 pm
@mk50
You are an unsufferable old knowall – expert on everything except the truth, and desperately seeking to discredit anything that distorts your naive and deluded view of the world.
Go back to bed before you do yourself a mischief.
1735099
18 Feb 13 at 9:29 pm
Brave Sir Numbers:
Yup, gotcha. This is purest ad-hom, the last refuge of the liar.
Basically, it’s the pig-squeal of the leftard caught red-handed.
And ‘unsufferable (sic) old knowall(sic)’?
no. Just a person who knows how to check stories. And THAT, Brave Sir Numbers, I have done for a (very good) living.
Mk50 of Brisbane
18 Feb 13 at 9:34 pm
You stupid fuck brained idiot, numbers, you misspelled ‘progressively’ as “progresivelly” (sic) the first time you told us this bullshit story…
…and you idiot, you somehow “think” (sic) that this justifies the damage the gormless fool Sawn has done to the economy.
.
18 Feb 13 at 9:40 pm
Dot, may I introduce Brave Sir Numbers?
You may not recognise him. He recently ran into a buzz-saw….
Mk50 of Brisbane
18 Feb 13 at 10:16 pm
I didn’t recognise him because he looked like a 5’6″ 170 chicken roast in all of that tin foil.
@mk50
Your infivisible (sic) load has as much credibility as your quoting of rules and regs. The difference between what should be and what is increases the further you get from Brisbane. Report it to the QPS? You’ve got to be kidding. Queensland has regressed to the police state it was back in the days of the old crook, Jo Bjelke-Petersen. Any report like that would have every copper from Toowoomba to Cunnamulla stalking my rego every time I left home, given the rig was under police escort at the time, and no action taken.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
.
18 Feb 13 at 11:16 pm
Wait. So it’s a police state that doesn’t enforce rules? Awesome.
There are provisions in law for moving loads of all kinds. I can guaran-fucking-tee you that any damage done gets paid for. Big moves like the one you describe are approved and regulated and measured and marked down to the last detail. You are talking shit, out of ignorance. AGAIN.
wreckage
18 Feb 13 at 11:57 pm
There’s no doubt wreckage that the Cat has the odd bloke or seven who knows a good bit about lots of different subjects – a liar strutting his stuff here soon gets found out.
That’s what innumerate has proven himself to be, several times over, a liar.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
19 Feb 13 at 12:10 am