Thursday, June 10, 2010

The 'Twiggy' and Gina show

Yesterday the Prime Minister arrived in W.A.to hold meetings explaining his proposed Mining SuperTax. Early in the day some high profile miners staged a rally in the city to protest the introduction of the tax. It was definitely a rent-a-crowd mob. Speakers included the richest man (depending on which day it is) in Australia and the richest woman. ‘Twiggy’ Forrest stirred up rent-a-crowd with the usual ‘What do we want?’ and our richest woman, Gina Rinehart did similarly. Ms Rinehart recently announced that she wants to bring in cheap Chinese labour….a true Australian patriot! Later, Mr Forrest accused the Prime Minister of turning Australia into a Communist dictatorship. Say what!? That would have caused a few shivers amongst the Peppy Grove attendees.

I don’t really understand the implications of the introduction of this tax and I don’t think the average punter on the street does either. It’s complex and may well, as the miners claim, stifle the mining industry. It is a huge jump in tax and I think it will go ahead with some robust negotiations and a bit of downward adjustment.

Also yesterday morning I drove Haddon and Margaret to Hospital so that he could have a couple of scans to determine where he is at with his prostate cancer. They were there for hours and when I collected them in the afternoon he was shattered. In old engineering terms, he had been drilled, punched, bored and reamed.

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