Miners, charity and corporate tax

[What'sinaname]

<split from "Should athletes have a say in corporate sponsorship?" thread>

[Skids]

It's funny how it's turned into a miner bashing thread.

The industry that is that backbone of our economy, the one that carried the country through covid, the one that produces every single element required for "green" energy production. Funny, but not surprising.

The usual suspects salivating at the opportunity to brand others with the usual labels.

On the 7th of December. Ms Reinhardt will give every single employee (circa 3000) a 30% Xmas bonus. The income tax paid by the recipients alone will be in excess of $160 million dollars, plus the payroll tax paid by the company.

The donations this woman makes to so many charities would blow your mind. She just doesn't get on a soap box and rave about it. The employment programs, sports and recreation facilities, housing, mental health support, Art centres, vehicles and many other additions to outback infrastructure she supports is astounding... yet, those who know absolutely nothing about her, other than what some left wing nazis want to spruik to them in their 7 seconds of fame on the ABC, continue to label her.

My Dad has many opinions, on many things that I don't totally agree with, but if some smart mouth wants to have a go at him, they'll have to go through me first. I'm definitely not going to be 'apologising' for any of his opinions, to anybody.

It's when we all start working together that the real healing can take place. It's sad that the flag burning, insult hurling, hard done by crowd will never be appeased.

[What'sinaname]

^ mining bashing is the domain of the greens and naive left.

[think positive]

Bravo!

Gina bashing here is a sport in its own right! Apparently she and the rest of the mega rich should pay 99% of their income in tax!

I wonder, if she looked like Christie Brinkley would she cop as much flack?

[pietillidie]

There's nothing wrong with mining per se, obviously. The problem is that because it is so over-sized in Australia it has owned government for two decades and distorted policy and sectoral development in the process. Everyone knows this.

Take global warming denial for starters, of which Australia was the epicentre, and which was unfathomably expensive and dangerous. Then add the farce of not scaling solar when you had the chance, and the successive mining-owned Glib governments who positioned green energy and technology not as essential progress, but as part of an idiotic culture war.

Let's not forget the refusal to put money into technology, including agricultural tech, even as tech rose to dominate every single major global market and become the most sustainable source of high-paying jobs and careers across the world. The mining-owned Glibs couldn't even divert enough money to roll out a proper NBN, let alone serious research and funding programmes, or to oversee serious environmental management programmes to deal with fires in a country that ought to have long mastered fire management. Now, there's massive deforestation and accelerating species decline that nothing has been done about for decades, as the country chases its tail cleaning up fires or floods.

All of that is ten times worse than it should be because a thuggish industry was allowed to turn successive governments and peoples brains into mush for a quick and easy buck when it should have been generating long-term value, wealth, communities, infrastructure and jobs.

Mining dominates Australia like heroin dominates an addict. Australians are not somehow naturally dumber than everyone else; however, mining makes countries dumb and always has, hence the term 'the resource curse' in economics. There's absolutely nothing to be thankful for because has dominated and stifled proper competitive industries, starved people of access to other career options, and stopped people from developing real smarts and really smart institutions.

Again, not all mining is bad, and the engineering side creates some good careers. There's also nothing wrong with some easy money and good fortune. But at a certain scale mining is clearly destructive because it takes over everything and makes people dumb and lazy.

[stui magpie]

I don't get how mining somehow prevents innovation in other sectors.

There's plenty of technology innovation happening in Australia, it just doesn't make as much money.

[pietillidie]

Tech and pharma/life sciences companies most certainly do make more money, which is why they dominate global indices.

Take the NBN, which is a perfect case in point of how this parasitic industry wrecks things. People like Rinehart opposed the mining windfall tax and pressured the Glibs on taxes. Hence, worsened goverment revenues and a second-rate underfunded version of the NBN. Now, apply that to programme after programme, infrastructure project after infrastructure project. There's always money for mining transport and freight infrastructure, but not for life sciences parks, venture funds or ambitious science projects.

Or take the lack of tech talent in Australia. It doesn't exist at meaningful concentration or ability because the mining sector (and associated finance sector) lured too many smart people away from the knowledge sector even as it supported a party that grossly underfunded universties, science research and R&D, which are huge engines of technology talent and engineering skills here.

Or take medical tech, ag tech and the life sciences. It takes massive government and private investment to get them to scale, but if you've got one industry draining all the talent and capital, and putting very little knowledge and know-how back into the country, you're draining the life blood of other sectors.

Grabbers like Rinehart see any support that goes elsewhere as an affront to their entitlement; they turn everything into a zero-sum game.

So, mining dominance chokes other industries by diverting capital, diverting talent, reducing government revenues and gobbling up infrastructure and support, meanwhile leaving behind monumental environmental problems, none more costly than its role in funding global warming denial, and turning the government against green energy and green technology.

[Skids]

[stui magpie]

[watt price tully]

[watt price tully]

[think positive]

Wow wow wow

Way to avoid the actual subject and also handout some over the top personal insults. This is why the board needs a mod that on the other side of what ever politics this comes from.

Some one once wrote of the tavern “they be demons in there”

Others have said it’s more bitchy than a girls school.


And sadly I actually don’t expect more than those belittling remarks! Do you actually talk to people face to face like that?



As for the thread, tax Bill or not, (how many billions have you guys paid? Like you don’t maximise your returns or volunteer to pay more!) reading the good Ginas company has done for not just the indigenous community, I think she’s more than made up for the heinous remarks made by her father. Not that she had too.

Come at MY intelligence now I really don’t give a ****.


Whatsinaname I totally agree about the majority of this kartrashian social media generation!

[pietillidie]

[pietillidie]

[What'sinaname]