ABC ignorance of mining diversity

Why don’t they dig for ore in Balmain instead? | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

Deborah Cameron recently made comments suggesting that the mining lifestyle has no lifestyle appeal outside of an econmic one. She then went on to describe mining towns as a place unsuitable for raising children.

On what evidence does she make these claims and are they at all balanced?

As a residence of a bustling North West Queensland mining community i find such blanket statements bordering on the offensive. Instead of getting angry i might illuminate the readers on why mining has many advantages to city life and that the industry is not just Fly In Fly Out mining camps.

Here are some facts about my lifestyle.

1. I work 4 days on and 4 days off, alternating beween days and then nights. Ample time to relax and when i take a block off i can potentially have 12 days of holidays which only cost me 48 hours of annual leave. Going back to a regular working week would cause mild depression.

2. I earn more than a head teacher as a second year electrical apprentice, and do not have to do marking or extra activities once i clock off from work.

3. My real estate prices are not collapsing like coastal prices and the the rent i collect from my rental generated a small profit in its first year of being rented, on the coast your rent maybe covers half your costs and the growth is likely negative.

4. I drive 5 minutes to get to work with no traffic and the showers and uniforms are provided at work. In the city you spend upto 1.5 hours in traffic unpaid.

5. All my friends live five minutes away, all the shops and gyms too. Anti-social is not how I describe my town.

The town I live in is ethnically diverse with locals through to domestic migrants and every single race under the sun all sharing in the prosperous mining lifestyle. I might add that they all get along famously with none of the racial ghetto failings of the city.


As you can see its a relaxed lifestyle with ample free time to pursue other interests.

As for Cameron, she needs to realize there is a multitude of options for mining lifestyles.

The coal belt around Mackay allows drive in drive out work in a range of work patterns and at the end of hard week, your back on the coast taking in the sea breeze like all those blessed city people who own coastal property.

Atleast in Mackay the average mine worker can afford a coastal property, the city folk need to have a few spare millions just to have a peek at the ocean over their neighbours roof.

As for the kids, i am no expert as i am yet to produce a litter, but i have many friends at work who have young families. They came out to the mines to provide their families with a better life.

Kids cost money, mines pay money, lots of it. The move to a mining town has enabled people working for below average wages, barely making ends meet, to provide a standard of living that simply is not available in the city for these families staking their hopes on the mines. They now have houses and new cars, with good schools within walking distance to send their kids too.

The other phenomenon apart from improved wealth and lifestyle that mining provides is how once one leg of the family establishes itself, the extended families also find their way out to the towns. The amount of extended families that migrate out into my mining community is astounding. Something is drawing these families out of the city and away from the coast...perhaps their is a link between economics and lifestlye?

Perhaps working 9-5 on the coast for 50k to provide for a two kid family simply is not a lifestyle at all.

Deborah i think people have made a choice to suit their needs, and instead of making factless denigrations of some imagined toxic mining town, you should go see for yourself what the mining lifestyle has to offer.


Burns your suits and put on a hard hat! The mining lifestyle is fun, the work atmosphere great!

Paul (protectionism) Howes

Recently in light of the shedding of some 1000 jobs by steel maker Bluescope, CWU chief Paul Howes has called for a return to protectionism to shelter trade exposed industries from the negative effects of the high Australian dollar. In particular he has called on government to regulate mining companies to be forced to buy Australian made steel. 

Mr Howes connections to The Socialist Alliance are well known, as are his claims to abandoning his socialist beliefs and recognizing the power of the market to provide prosperity. I wonder then why at every opportunity he advocates policies that could be described as none other than socialism by stealth. 

Surely there has not been a more ridiculous claim in recent years from the unions to use government to dictate where one industry must procure such an integral part of its operations, steel. Although, I do believe to be left leaning in your politics stems from an inability to properly integrate economic history with current events.


Unintended consequence! Sometimes it is so obvious maybe it is intended.

Mr Howes economic genius was best expressed on a recent MTR segment on the 23rd of August featuring Steve Price and known conservative Andrew Bolt. Mr Howes expressed the view that if we had the Resource Tax on mining in place, the dollar could be down and allow our steel to remain somewhat competitive. His basic message is he wishes to use government to punish companies for productivity and reward those who do not compete via government enforced redistribution. 

Mr Bolt engaged in a futile back and forth where Mr Howes was unable to have the consequences of his economics explored in full. Mr Bolt was able to ask some questions but they were readily dismissed by Mr Howes as he continued his Rant on protectionism.

Mr Bolts questions boiled down to these two essentials questions.

Will such a measure force up the cost of mining the iron ore that feeds the manufacturing of steel? Will this cost be passed on?

It does not take a business degree to be able to recognize that a measure to force mining companies to buy more expensive Australian steel will add further costs to the actual mining of iron ore.

Firstly the cost will be passed in full back to the Australian steel manufacturers; making their product more expensive to customers outside the mining sector. It will drive all but there government enforced customers away due to added input costs passed on from the iron ore companies. 

Secondly it will establish a government monopoly for Australian steel manufactures allowing them to set monopoly prices to the mining industry and remove any pressure to innovate and improve their manufacturing process to become more competitive. Put simple, it is moral and economic hazard.

Lastly by putting upward pressure on mining costs we then make our mining operations less competitive on the international scene. Australia has high grade resources but we are not the only country, new deposits of various base metals and energy are being brought online around the globe every day to fuel China's appetite.

Australia already has expensive labour and tax costs; facing possible Mining and Carbon taxes, a measure such as that proposed by Mr Howes would simply allow foreign competition in mining and the already killer competition in manufacturing to damage our big industries driving prosperity and employment to new shores.

Mr Howes inability to grasp the consequences of his policy demands is staggering but not surprising. The left still pushing a raft of failed theories of economics from Keynes to Protectionism leaves me know doubt they are unable to integrate proven historical economic failures with current events threatening the global and domestic economic situation.

The arguments against protectionism are well founded, and the removal of a raft of protectionist policies in the 1980's are one of the biggest factors in transforming our country into the prosperous powerhouse it is today. The inability of Mr Howes and the current Federal Government to understand our countries success and how open market policies drove it through the last two decades is having very real consequences as we go into a new wave of uncertain times.


Australian manufacturing is under threat so if not protectionism, what?

Put simply I do agree with Mr Howes assessment of a high dollar driven by high commodities as the main cause of our manufacturing industries decline. It is however not the only cause; as we know manufacturing has been dying the slow death for over two decades in this country due to global competition. 

High labour costs, heavy regulation especially on labor, and burdensome tax rates imposed by all levels of government are three major government created issues which are in our means to control. Global competition is not something in our control, how our government impacts our businesses is!


Taxation - Australia needs to be an easier place to do business!
The elephant in the room taxation. It is understandable but unforgivable how unions so tightly weaved into the power structure of the ALP refuse to acknowledge how hard all levels of government make it for every single small business through to large company to compete domestically and abroad. I always wonder why we never see unionists denouncing the Carbon and Mining tax despite the obviousness of their soon to be felt impact of jobs and living costs. 

Union leaders always support these tax measures which will hurt every Australian provided their particular industries of concern receive nice healthy compensation packages from the government. Could rent seeking and payed support be so obvious? Unions then wonder why their membership and general community support wanes much like the manufacturing sector in this country.

Union leaders by their nature must be tribal and look after their members interests, but they do so at the expense of every other Australian and whichever singled out industry is poised to be shaken down by the ever cash hungry government.

Union members must demand their leaders to fight the Carbon and Mining tax for their own well-being and for the rest of the Australians whose living standards are under threat from big government far more so than competition abroad.

Labour costs will never compete with developing countries but they can be reduced by removing payroll tax. This abhorrent tax pushes employers for doing a moral and economic good of making people productive. Union bosses should be all over this tax if they really want to keep their members gainfully employed.


Unions like the ALP, simply out of touch!

It seems plain to me that union leaders such as Mr Howes are either wilfully ignorant of economics or deliberately exploit a form of class welfare between high and low performing industries to extort protection from government for their members industries. They do this with reckless abandon for the consequences to industries and workers outside (not entirely) their union membership.

It is no surprise the Federal Labor government has brought forward part of the 100 million dollar assistance package to the steel industry in Australia, it amount to nothing more than paying people like Paul Howes and his fellow union bosses to keep quiet. They get a handout whilst other companies and individuals will take the brunt of a new raft of government imposed costs on living and producing. 

The better you perform as a company or individual the less likely you are to receive assistance. The productive part of the economy which exists because it efficiently meets market demand pays for those who do not. Short term such measures are affordable and politically popular, in the long term however it is unsustainable and will come back to bite us. It happen in the recent past and we responded, why do we now take a step backward?

No private industry should ever have to rely on government handouts to exist. Markets can only work if they are set free to work, otherwise scare resources are poured into economically unsustainable investments and it is only a matter of time before the government money runs out. Once these funds dry up those businesses much like the solar and insulation installers which made up the first stimulus response post GFC find they have no business and close doors and lay off workers. 

The market forces innovation, it is a creative destruction, but countries that embrace it are best able to meet future uncertainty than countries whose economies need welfare to exist.

Union leaders will continue to drive membership levels south if they refuse to properly understand economics and continue to support anti-prosperity measures put forth by the federal government. The alienation of union bosses with their members is analogous to Federal Labor's alienation of the Australian public. Nobody in power is listening to who they are entrusted to protect and it seems power, special privilege and perhaps protectionism are the defining themes of this horrendous political paradigm now steering us head long into uncertain economic times.


Big government get out of the way!

The debate should not seek to force high performing companies to prop up lower performing companies but look at what is really making it hard for all Australian businesses to compete. Blaming some industries for doing well then punishing them is as immoral as it is dangerous; exploiting it to push protectionism, a character flaw.

Every business person can tell you how government regulation and endless taxes are making it hard to earn in this uncertain climate.

We cannot alter world economic conditions or competition. We can however lower taxes and make Australia an easy country to do business in, be it manufacturing, mining and everything in between!

Operation Stimulus: A Legacy of Debt

In the immediate wake of the Global Financial Crisis the vast majority of developed countries around the world rapidly deployed stimulus spending in an effort to replace falling private sector spending with government spending. The USA led the way with multi-billion dollar packages and tax payer bailouts of private banks, other countries throughout the Eurozone followed suit and Australia was no exception. Now the dust has barely settled and a new round of troubles has been stirred by the raising of the US debt ceiling and the downgrade from a triple A credit rating.

At Home

In Australia our government emptied the surplus of the previous government then borrowed additional billions to engage in a range of spending programs in order to stave off recession. The country did manage to just avoid a technical recession and the Rudd Labor government got free press to claim an economic point. Unfortunately for the government and more importantly the tax payer, all policy measures, especially those that require billions of government borrowings have consequences that can be hidden for years and sometimes decades.

It is impossible to prove or disprove whether the governments spending worked to stave of the GFC recession gripping most advanced economies. Certainly we had incredible terms of trade and a high dollar to keep us economically firing; stimulated greatly from the Chinese whose extensive savings meant they kept paying historically high prices for our resources. During these extraordinary market conditions the government poured borrowed money into a range of stimulus measures which have proven to have been highly wasteful and not too impressive in job creation.

Enough commentary has been made on the waste of the BER and Pink Batts program. The consequence is we have little to show for the destruction of the future fund designed to cover government liabilities going forward and to top it off we have an estimated government debt peak of 190 billion dollars estimated to occur in 2013.

The Consequence

Debts have to be paid, especially government debts. If governments postpone repaying what they owe you get the basket case economies of Europe floundering in low to zero growth and jobs vanishing to the suffering of your citizens. The US is facing the ever looming reality that its debt will diminish its place in the world as super power. Unemployment is around 9% and economic growth is nowhere in sight. Japan has been pump priming for generations much like the US and Europe and has nothing but economic decline to show for it. Stimulus does not work in every historical example I have encountered. In fact the more a country stimulated with borrowed money the worse and more prolonged the economic effects tend to be. So did Australia's stimulus really work or was it to small to hurt us much and was it masked by strong terms of trade due to our unique tie to the Chinese economy?

My Answer is the stimulus in Australia was masked and the debt legacy is about to face a real economic test.

GFC round two

A fresh wave of economic uncertainty is making its way around the economies of the world. The real issue of our current government debt is going to be tested in the second round of financial issues gripping the world. If stimulus did work the first time the option to use it again is off the table for the government, they cannot risk the debt issue already sour in the public spoiling completely. They must return to surplus and they have a plan, this plan is you and i, the tax payer.

While Australians face uncertain times going forward the government is going to make us directly or indirectly pay for the debt with a raft of new taxation policies.

The Mining Tax singles out a high performing industry to help refill the coffers. It is sending a message to the world that if you do well in Australia the government will take notice, attempt to turn the public against you, then take by force an even higher share of your profits. It troubles foreign investors and it scares companies at home, not to mention the workers who no doubt enjoy their salaries which compete and even out strip many of their professional counterparts in the city. Many Australians love a strong mining industry and the Mining tax threatens to reduce the strength of it going forward into now very uncertain times.

The Carbon (Dioxide) Tax is much the same issue in regards to damaging our stable business reputation abroad. Instead of just singling out high performers it targets any business or individual who consumes or produces products which create Carbon Dioxide emissions. In short everybody will pay for this tax, directly or indirectly. The governments compensation is smoke and mirrors to grab votes early before the real effects are felt when the price signal ripples through the economy driving up prices and setting our international competitiveness up for a big governmental hit, a government own goal.

The government has a plan to return to surplus. It involves robbing the productive sections of the economy for wealth redistribution and setting our economy at a severe competitive disadvantage in economically uncertain times. The legacy of debt has been bigger government spending and now game changing levels of government interference which only spell danger going forward into the aftermath of the GFC.

When governments over react and rely on defunct pump priming spendathons whilst ignoring the evidence of failing Europe, Japan and tragically the United States, it is the tax payers who bear the price. All debts must be paid, you cannot fix debt with more debt, and it is very worrying that we will face higher business and consumer costs as we head down an ever darkening economic future; our global competitiveness severly hampered.