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“Australia should stop exporting raw materials and do the refining closer to the mines.” High cost of energy / high cost of labour / history of problematic ind

• FridgeSeal 4y ago
  > high cost of labour / history of problematic industrial relations High “cost” would be much less of an issue, if we actually taxed these resource companies appropriately. At the moment they’re basically allowed to waltz out of the country with materials en masse, for relatively no cost. The one time we suggested that maybe they should be paying fairly, they screeched loudly and ran an enormous media campaign against that party.
  • alvah 4y ago
    That’s a naive understanding of 2 topics in 1 post. Structural high labour costs can’t be negated by a CO2 tax - how could they? The Gillard / Ken Henry CO2 tax proposals would have had a devastating impact on employment in both mining and oil & gas. While many ideologues would have cheered this at the time, both industries were and are essential to modern industrial economies. There are many examples all over the world (and in Econ 101 textbooks) of what happens after you increase taxes on an activity or product. While there was a media campaign, it’s disingenuous to suggest that’s the only thing that stopped the tax (and got rid of one of many terrible governments we’ve had in modern-day Australia).