I disagree about the tax. just about every other nation is...

I disagree about the tax. just about every other nation is ramping up mining taxes, including Africa, in Africa there is a very real threat of nationalization. Also unlike many African nations the Australian Gov does not demand a large stake in a company to allow it to mine. So where is it safest to set up??? if you are spending Billions.

The proof of the state of doing business in Australia is reflected in the pipeline of projects coming on stream, what the miners are saying and what they are actually doing are two different things.

Profits:

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics total pre-tax profits earned by miners was more than $51 billion in

2009-2010. That's up from about $13 billion a decade earlier. That's an increase of almost 400 per cent within a decade. And the outlook for the future is extremely robust. Based on Treasury forecasts, mining profits over the next 10 years will exceed $600 billion if world commodity prices remain high.

Taxes and royalties:

It is true, as the ads says, that the mining industry pays 500 per cent more in royalties to the states — for the extraction of minerals — and in taxes than it did 10 years ago. But, based on Australian Tax Office figures and the National Accounts, the mining industry

continues to pay a very low rate of corporate tax. The mining industry's average corporate tax rate is below 15 per cent — less than half the theoretical 30 per cent company rate. One reason is the generous tax breaks the mining industry gets for research and development and for capital expenditure.

The ads' lumping together of taxes and royalties is a practice frequently employed by the mining industry. It gives the impression that mining's tax burden is beyond that of other industries. While royalties are technically classed as taxes, they are not taxes within the normal meaning. They are the recompense that miners pay to state governments for the minerals they extract, which they on-sell internationally. One way of looking at royalties is to see them as payment for the raw material on which the mining industry is based. Other industries, of course, pay hard cash for their raw materials — as a restaurant pays food suppliers and a builder for bricks. These are not taxes, they are business costs.