I get really annoyed when journos and biz types refer to mining companies as “miners”. Miners are not companies, but workers; the workers who actually generate the windfall profits a portion of which the Rudd government is planning to redirect to facilitating higher super for workers.
The business lobby’s response has been typically over the top and no doubt we’re going to hear the cute phrase about golden gooses from a bunch of geese over and over again.
The claim, typical of business rhetoric in a globalised world, that operations will be moved offshore is particularly egregious in this context. The resources are in the ground. What they mean, what they can only mean, is capital, and in any case the threat is almost certainly an empty one.
It should not be forgotten, aside from all the analysis about an ageing population, that women in particular, and many younger workers in general, are very inadequately served by super, and have little other opportunity to accumulate wealth because they’re not in secure full time work. This sort of reform, to the degree that it addresses these sorts of persistent inequalities, can only be a good thing. Kudos to Wayne Swan.
Elsewhere: Guy Beres.
Update: [by Kim] New post on the media coverage of the Resources Super Profits Tax.
