You would have seen the advert appearing on commercial television: The miners are paying "enough" in royalties and taxes (not counting the mining tax) and wages of course... To be deducted also are shareholders dividends, profits, investments, executives and CEO remuneration, bonuses, international currency fluctuations and a packet of chips...

Not counting that what they sell is the country's dirt, yours, in the form of mountains that soon become a series of big holes...

I guess the aim of the advert is to tell us to vote for Mister Abbott, the miners' friend — locked in a permanent embrace with Gina — an Abbott who at the last election was going to give miners 400 millions of government charity-money because the miners were poor... The poor miners can't afford a packet of chips when they go and visit their profit stacked in tax havens or trusts, using a company Lear-jet...

The advert does not say that of course, that would be "illegally" political... No, the advert is designed with an ordinary bloke to keep the miners in focus as the major teats feeding this country's too big public service (not in blue shirt or bush hat) — with only about 5 per cent of the total government budget, mind you...

But it's in the miners' interest that the government should not impose a resource mining rent (tax) because the owners of the mines — possibly overseas corporations —  apart from Gina, Andrew and a couple of others — don't want to pay anything more... In there, you can sense the undertone of the script pointing the finger at the big bad Swan... 

Rio Tinto's iron ore production has hit a fresh record, despite concern about volatile commodity prices.

The world's third biggest miner produced 4 per cent more iron ore in the first quarter of 2013 than it did in the same period a year early, digging up 61.2 million tonnes of the commodity.

That was, however, down 8 per cent on production in the fourth quarter as several seasonal cyclones each interrupted output temporarily.

Rio says the recovery from cyclone season was quick, and it is already back to full capacity of 237 million tonnes a year, which will rise to 290 million tonnes by the third quarter this year, with the company's expansion on track for accelerated completion.

The Anglo-Australian miner says its iron ore shipments were up 7 per cent in the first quarter to 57.3 million tonnes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-16/rio-tinto-iron-ore-production-hits-fresh-record/4632796

So the miners spent $20 million on an advertising campaign telling us out here in couch land how we'd be heavily screwed if they (the miners) had to pay that extra tax. It was kind of like a public service announcement, ya know, helping us all out. Kinda sweet of them, really.  
Of course, since then, one of the most outspoken opponents of the tax, Gina Rinehart, has been named THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.Think on that.
Three point six billion women live on this planet and not one of them has more cash than Gina Rinehart. Kids eat roadkill and women give birth under trees and Gina's spewing because she might fall from first place on the table of Unbelievably Rich Arsehats because she had to pay more tax.
Clive Palmer was another dude who groused about the tax and since then, he's decided to spend some of his spare cash on building animatronic dinosaurs and a replica of the Titanic ... cos, you know, who needs an MRI in a country hospital if you can spend a lazy couple of hundred million on a fat, rich man's version of a billy cart to impress his other fat, rich friends.
Another fabulously wealthy miner, Twiggy Forrest, even went as far as to say that the proposed extra tax on him and his mates was *EVIL*.
"In an interview on ABC Radio, Mr Forrest also said his High Court challenge against the federal government’s mining tax was about conquering evil. All it took for evil to win was for good people to do nothing, the Fortescue chairman said," according to the SMH.
So this is where I get confused. Why did we buy it?
Why did so many hard-working, honest, doing-the-best-they-can Aussies actually believe that ridiculously wealthy individuals and corporations suddenly cared about them?
Once upon a time we were a nation, filled with citizens, and I might have bought this kind of crapola from "The Big Australian" - BHP. But now? Come on.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/mining-for-truth-20130603-2nlpl.html#ixzz2Vs3kmDoS

See toons at top...