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A mining boom for mining companies… not for anyone else
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New work by the Australia Institute suggests that the benefits of the mining boom were far smaller than believed and primarily went to mining companies themselves, rather than taxpayers or workers across all industries. The Institute’s David Richardson has crunched the numbers on the impact of the spectacular surge in commodity prices from 2004 and found that many of the gains from the boom were temporary or offset by losses elsewhere. Mining companies were the obvious winners, earning $37b in additional profits over the period, but much of this was re-invested in new capacity which is now idle or, in Rio Tinto’s case, wasted on a top-of-the-market purchase of Alcan. Much of the profit returned to shareholders also went overseas. Non-mining companies, other than those directly servicing the mining sector, did not fare as well. Other exporters suffered from a higher exchange rate that reduced Australian competitiveness in areas such as manufacturing (although it also reduced the cost of imported goods), and the whole economy faced higher interest rates as the Reserve Bank strived to contain the boom. Workers benefitted from significant real wage rises only if they worked in the mining sector or in Western Australia, which virtually ran out of workers toward the end of the boom. Wages across the economy, however, only showed a fractional real increase beyond levels of growth seen in previous years. For mortgage holders, wage increases were also partially offset by the significant rise in interest rates over the period, although the higher exchange rate kept import prices lower. Governments in Western Australia and Queensland benefitted from a near-doubling of royalties, but the mining boom itself only contributed a fraction of the overall additional tax revenue the Commonwealth found itself swimming in during the boom. According to the Institute’s figures, tax revenue from mining company profits only accounted for less than a fifth of the additional revenue Treasury failed to forecast over the period, suggesting the additional spending and tax cuts provided by the Commonwealth were financed mostly by overall economic growth, not the mining boom. The report shows some of the elements of the “resources curse” at work, particularly in the impact on other exporters of an exchange rate boosted by commodity prices. The corollary, however, is that the rest of the economy also performed strongly in terms of profits, which fed back into taxation revenues and funded personal income tax cuts. It also suggests Australian workers did not exploit — or were not successful at exploiting — the boom to significantly increase real wages outside the mining sector. Given Workchoices didn’t commence until the end of March 2006, it is clear that the pre-Workchoices industrial relations system was relatively effective at curbing the sort of wage break-out that had been prompted by previous resources booms such as at the start of the 1980s. The wholly unnecessary and ideologically extremist nature of Workchoices is clearer than ever. However, the Institute also notes that the boom is not yet over, given commodity prices still remain at historic highs and mining output is still 15% higher than in 2004. A rapid recovery might leave us poised on the edge of another boom — with all its positive and negative effects. |
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13 Comments
“but much of this ($37b profit) was re-invested in new capacity”
‘But’?? What is this if not a clear manifestation of flow-on benefit to the wider economy?
Was it entirely coincidental that high growth in the overall economy was contemporaneous with the mining boom?
Mining boom should never be limited to ‘job creation scheme’ only.
From what I understand, the State of South Australia gets only 2% of profit from mining industry. It is really a shame that the country is being plundered by multinationals with no benefit for the inhabitants. The mining companies do not seem to be responsible for anything they use: water resources, infrastructure, energy, etc. It is high time that the profit from this uncontrolled plundering were shared by the companies and the locals equally.
What I understand, the mining industry should not be allowed to use local resources unconditionally and the governments should treat our natural resources as the national treasure.
Big companies should be able to help build infrastructure in return: water desalination, solar energy, roads/transport facilities, etc. After all, unlike most of us, they have tax exemptions!
Otherwise, there is a nasty feeling that we are still a colony … up for exploitation.
With one and a half million people in South Australia, with all possible natural resources and minerals we should be the most opulent nation in the world.
What our governments have been doing instead, is to make sure that we live under a controlled poverty.
None of the State/Federal politicians from South Australia has ever even bothered to raise the question of our national riches and the benefit we should be getting as a State.
Our politicians should make some educational trips to Scandinavian countries and learn something for a change.
I guess, contrary to many West Australians, they weren’t ‘driving the Australian economy’ after all. Oh well, back to pre history here in WA with no day light savings and shopping hours once enjoyed by the rest of the first world country in 1965…
Excellent article Bernard. Equally excellent comment Rena Zurawel.
Of course we are still a colony; we’ve got a foreign head of state to prove it. Also, there should be more to life that merely looking at this rape of our land as providing jobs. Yes, jobs are created, but not as frequently as they used to be. Now there are giant machines doing the words of dozens of miners.
What our wretched politicians should demand is the covering of phased-out mine sites with wilderness or parks something decent and worth having.
The ultimate betrayal of Australia is evidenced by our giving to China and Japan, huge tanker loads of LNG-3 cents a litre I think-whilst storing none of it for ourselves.
As with Steve Fielding, our politicians take expensive overseas-FACT FINDING- trips. The facts they find could be found by anyone with access to a computer. It’s the freebies they love.
Do you know the worst example of pigs in the trough ministries? Don’t know if it still goes by this name, but it used to be called ‘The Minister for war-graves ‘Ha! there are a zillion war graves in this world and it used to be first-class travel as well. Ah the joys of being a colony.
Rena and Venise, I recommend a trip to somewhere like the Democratic Republic of Congo before decrying how the Australian mining industry is run. Not only would you find out what ‘controlled poverty’ really means (and never again use such a phrase to describe any state in Australia), but you’d also see what sort of disasters can unfold when governments treat natural resources as ‘the national treasure’.
So Queensland hasn’t squandered whatever royalties it received as it sells off $30 billion of state assets and flick-passes its petrol subsidy?
Dear Mark
I’m not sure of your point regarding the congo?
When did we get rid of the Belgians? Perhaps apples with apples. The congo has been a republic for how many years?
Im not sure of what the definition of controlled poverty is but if it is that people are kept poor so that the workforce stays in place I think it exists in this country. Maybe not as bad as an african nation 50 years old. But it exists where it shouldn’t.
Mark Duffett. Dear me do you always try to land a punch when you’re off balance?
Having traveled in some of the poverty-striken mining areas of South America and Asia I feel more than competent to comment on some of Australia’s mining faults. (I’ll come back to this in a minute.)
So, I imagine selling all our LNG to China for three cents a litre is the result of the Oz public demanding and/or saying our oil-wells are a National treasure? Ditto the rat-sh-t bargaining which sees the Japanese and Chinese walking all over us-on the basis of being closer to them in distance than they are to Brazil?
I’ve traveled also in the great land of Oz and been present when someone has a find-twice-also I seen it happen on the news. The first thing someone says when they do have a find is. ‘great, now we can flog it off to America’. Why do they never think that keeping some of our vast mineral wealth might be good for us.
Generally our poverty is of the spirit.
Now then Mark. Do you know that poverty is a Western concept. Why you may ask?
Because to be poor in Australia you don’t even have to work for it. Unlike the poor bastards toiling in the tin mines of Bolivia or in the appalling conditions of the jade miners in Myanmar. Think about that before you come out with crap like ‘controlled poverty’.
Vernice,
I think I’m missing your point. I’m not sure how keeping our mineral wealth’ for us’ is going to help? If we can’t sell to people who want it and are willing to pay (foreign countries/companies) then no profit will be begot (so no salaries etc for Australians). The Australian economy is too small to sell it to each other, so that’s no good. I can only assume that you mean don’t dig it up at all and protect the environment? Can you explain your position a little more for me please?
Cheers
Julian
Dear Heathdon,
My points regarding the DRC were
1) no one in Australia, excepting possibly some in Aboriginal communities, can describe themselves as ‘poor’ in comparison to the vast majority of Congolese, and
2) the ruinous decline of the Congolese mining industry and associated economy in recent decades is directly related to the nationalisation of said industry in the early 1970s (note the wars of later years impinged little on the Copperbelt province of Katanga). Only with the return of multinational industry is it beginning to recover.
Venise, I don’t think I’m the one who’s unbalanced here. If you’ve seen poverty-ridden mining areas overseas, I’d have thought the only thing this says about Australia’s mining industry is how well managed ours is by comparison. And the phrase ‘controlled poverty’ originated with Rena, not me.
Julian, I think the point is that we’re not getting full value for our resources, and seem grateful that someone will come and dig them up and sell them, rather than making someone else feel priveleged for having access. I think in a lot of cases there’s no real alternative; you can’t effectively outsource a resource, it’s in the dirt; and we should make them pay more.
There is the counter argument though, that if the taxes were higher, no one would bother. Probably a fair point, but the justification against it is that we need the money now and can’t afford to wait.
Which brings me to a personal bug bear, that we’re so hopeless at the value-added commodities. We sell raw bauxite, iron ore, yellow cake, and even bloody wood chips, rather than a decent product that values our resources closer to their market value. I studied the SE forestry for a bit at uni, and was outraged that we were cutting old growth forest down, and this is beautiful timber in a lot of cases, and CHIPPING it, to sell to Japan to make paper. Then we bought the paper back at a 10,000% price increase. It just saddens me the way we’re not only destroying our mineral and environmental heritage, but we’re getting bugger all value while we do it, in an effort to get the cash as quickly as possible.
Julian Watson: If you solemnly believe that I would choose to leave everything thing in the ground you are being specious. I just object to selling everything off overseas before we consider putting aside a certain percentage to be purchased by Oz.
However, I see that Evan Beaver has been far more eloquent than I could be. The only thing he hasn’t managed to include is the fact that these living giants (not forgetting the wildlife they support) are felled, turned into wood-chips, shipped to Japan, turned into lavatory paper which we then buy back from Japan as dinky scented ‘toilet rolls’.
Are you happy with that scenario Julia? Sorry, Julian. BTW my name is Venise-without an ‘r’.
Mark Duffet. You are the one who brought in the Belgian Congo, not me.
I was perfectly happy with Bernard’s article. I am sure you’ve read a lot of history about mining booms. You will have noticed how little is left for a country once the ore is either no longer economical to continue mining it, or been extracted
In Victoria we have lovely old buildings which were built in the gold mining era. What money hadn’t been sent back to the mother country as it was so quaintly called was duly lost in subsequent crashes. It is the same story in Brazil and for all I know in various African nations. It certainly happen to Spain after the gold/emerald/silver mines of the New World had been rendered no longer worth the transportation. In case you hadn’t noticed it’s taken Spain about five hundred years to recover.