The Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA (CME) said the campaign was necessary as the risk posed to the iron ore sector by the mining tax was too significant to ignore.
CME Chief Executive, Mr Reg Howard-Smith, said the fact-based campaign would counter mistruths put by the WA Nationals in an attempt to justify their job-destroying tax.
“The WA Nationals’ new mining tax will make WA uncompetitive and severely damage WA’s international reputation as a place to do business. The new tax will destroy local jobs and make Australia the world’s highest taxing iron ore jurisdiction,” Mr Howard-Smith said.
“We are aiming to help Western Australians understand that the new mining tax will cost regional jobs, hamper investment and damage the state’s competitiveness on an international scale.
“WA's iron ore royalties are already four times greater than Brazil, which is our main competitor. The new tax would make our royalty rate seven times higher than Brazil’s which would be a crippling disadvantage. We would be uncompetitive. Brazil is already increasing its global market share at WA’s expense and the proposed mining tax risks making this worse. There is no doubt this disadvantage would cost WA investment and the thousands of direct and indirect jobs.
“In WA jobs one in four jobs rely on mining and more than 300,000 families benefit from the industry.”
Mr Howard-Smith said WA’s iron ore miners paid their share as they should. Between 2004/05 and 2014/15, WA’s iron ore miners contributed more than $27 billion in royalties to the WA Budget. This is the same amount spent on WA police over the same period and more than double the amount spent by the state on roads over that time.
WA’s two biggest miners pay an average of $19 per tonne in taxes and royalties, not 25 cents as claimed by the WA Nationals.
“All Western Australians, directly or indirectly, rely on a healthy resources sector to provide jobs and income to the State. Some companies are planning to be mining iron ore in the Pilbara for the next 100 years. Their commitment is for the long term, not an election cycle. It is in their interests to invest in the local communities and do the right thing by local families and businesses,” Mr Howard-Smith said.
“It is important for WA that this short-sighted tax does not go ahead as the negative impacts far outweigh any short-term positives that the Nationals might believe exist,” Mr Howard-Smith said.
“As part of this campaign we are commissioning independent experts to assess any positive or negative impacts of this tax. We will release this information to enable people to make their own decisions based on independent, expert advice.”
For more information on the campaign against the job-destroying mining tax, go to: www.keepwaminingstrong.com
