If the price of hard coking coal in 2004 was $100, today it is $400 a tonne.
If the cost of labour in the mining industry in 2004 was 100, today it is just 127. Labour makes up 15 per cent of costs in the mining industry. Fuel and machinery costs have also increased in these last five years, but again, nothing like the prices gained.
In 2004 the iron ore export industry and the coking coal export industries were enjoying huge profits. So today they are enjoying profits beyond their wildest dreams – because costs may have also increased in these last six years, but nothing like the prices. For example, BHP Billiton alone declared a profit of $10.7 billion in 2009, and predicts a profit of $23.5 billion in 2011.
The mining bosses are going berserk at the Rudd Labor government – which has been very friendly to them – because they see this super-profits tax concept in Australia as the start of a global move by governments to increase the public share in the global minerals boom.
It is a global conflict between huge mining corporations like BHP-Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata on the one hand, and hundreds of millions of people in mineral rich regions in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Australia.
- Norway has a super-profit tax of 78 per cent – and the multinationals pay.
- Chile- the largest copper producer - is proposing a new mining tax to take an extra $12 billion this year. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo-American are investing $48 billion there to 2017.
- Brazil – the largest iron ore producer – is planning a bigger tax take from mining.
- India is proposing a windfall profits tax on non-fuel resources.
