Queensland to be belted by the great big tax on mining
7th June, 2010
Queensland may have more to fear than any other state from Kevin Rudd’s giant new tax on mining, Nationals’ Leader Warren Truss said today.The value of projects already canned or at risk in Queensland from this absolutely unnecessary tax now tops $50 billion, while the Queensland Resources Council says the state would be short-changed by $2.5 billion in the first two years.
“Queensland will be devastated by this proposed new tax,” Mr Truss said. Tens of thousands of jobs could go, investment will disappear and the state’s prosperity will be irreparably harmed. The return to Queensland is pathetically low.”
Projects now stalled because of Labor’s tax include:
• Xstrata suspends $6 billion Wandoan thermal coal project
• Xstrata suspends $600 million expansion of the Ernest Henry copper mine
• Queensland Gas Company/BG Group’s $10 billion LNG project
• Origin Energy Ltd/Conoco Phillips’ $9.6 billion LNG project
• Santos/Petronas’ $7.7 billion LNG project
• Waratah Coal $7.5 billion
• Chalco’s $3 billion bauxite project
• Gladstone Pacific Nickel $1.2 billion
• Ensham Resources $1.2 billion coal project
• Rio Tinto/Mitsui/ Kestrel Coal Investment $1.2 billion
• Aquila Resources $1 billion - coal
Many other projects, including major BHP investments on new open cut coal mines at Daunia and Caval Ridge, and an expansion of the Goonyella coal mine, all near Moranbah in the northern Bowen Basin, are on hold.
The Queensland Resources Council has said less than half of the $4.5 billion in tax paid by Queensland resource companies would come back to the state.
“Indeed, Labor’s new super tax may well result in less tax being collected by the Federal Government as more and more projects stall. That will mean less federal money for hospitals, schools, infrastructure and services.
“All Queenslanders need to know how much damage this new tax could do to their lives. The tax is not in the national interest, and it is certainly not in Queensland’s interests,” Mr Truss said.
