AAP General News (Australia)
08-26-2011
FED:Editorials, Friday Aug 26, 2011
SYDNEY, Aug 26 AAP - BHP Billiton's 74 per cent increase in underlying profit to $22.5
billion is a reminder of how vital the resources sector is to the nation, The Australian
says in its editorial today.
Mining sector investment is expected to add an extra 3 per cent to annual GDP - compared
with only 1 per cent from the remaining 80 per cent of the economy - and will provide
the basic momentum to give Australia a growth economy.
Our minerals and our location in a region undergoing immense growth helped us avoid
the global financial collapse of 2008 and will help us again in any double-dip recession.
Along with the GDP boost, a healthy mining sector augments the wealth of workers through
their superannuation savings and benefits shareholders directly through higher dividends.
The huge BHP profit has prompted calls for miners to pay a higher price for the right
to extract finite minerals. There is room to canvass this issue in the broader context
of the Henry recommendations and the October tax summit.
Australians understand the economy is underpinned by resources; they have a right to
know the government is looking out for the national interest and ensuring miners pay appropriate
levels of taxation.
Melbourne's Herald Sun says Labor looks to be on the run as the escalating credit card
scandal reaches the Prime Minister's office.
Ms Gillard is under attack over reports her chief of staff made inquiries in 2009 about
allegations against Mr Thomson's misappropriation of Health Services Union funds.
But the Prime Minister has hit back at the coalition, accusing Liberal senator George
Brandis of trying to influence the NSW Police Minister over the affair.
The scandal shows Ms Gillard's frustration in keeping her government together.
"But whenever an election comes, the possibility of Labor retaining power looks as
unlikely as Mr Thomson remaining an MP," it said.
Brisbane's The Courier-Mail says propping up the rust belt eats away at our future
While it is reasonable to aspire to be a manufacturing nation, we should be wary of
doing so at the cost of the productive parts of the economy where we have natural advantages.
We should be a nation that makes things but there is a valid question about how much
premium we should pay as a nation to make things that would be better imported. It's a
better idea to put our efforts into producing that which we can do well.
The rustbelt unions and industry bodies have long projected a loud voice in Canberra.
They talk about protecting jobs but rarely talk about the impost on jobs from subsidising
the inefficiencies that flow through the emerging economy.
Queensland could lead an economic future that delivers income from selling food, energy,
leisure and education to the growing nations to our north. This should not be tripped
up by rentseekers trying to protect the old industries that can no longer compete.
The Sydney Morning Herald says the Gillard government is strangely unable to convince
the public it has done, or wishes to do, anything worthwhile.
Perhaps a clue as to why it struggles to gain credit for soundly based policies can
be found in the Greens' analysis of the mineral resources rent tax.
Kevin Rudd's resources super profits tax (RSPT) would have raised $140 billion during
its first 10 years, while the revised version - the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT)
- now before parliament that Julia Gillard negotiated with the big miners will raise $38.5
billion.
Labor has compromised on good policy, thus limiting its ability to bring about the
worthwhile changes it has promised.
A tax on mining rents might be invested in a version of the Future Fund to benefit
the nation after the present boom has subsided.
But the government has closed off that possibility by its tax compromise and must resort
to another fix.
All this trimming, ducking and weaving undermines the strong arguments that exist for
what are - or should have been - sound policies.
Sydney's The Daily Telegraph says the difficult attempts by Labor identities to deflect
attention away from the Craig Thomson issue may be examples of the truism proved by Watergate
that the cover-up can be more damaging than the original offence.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently raised the case of SA Liberal Senator Mary Jo
Fisher, who is charged with shoplifting $92 worth of groceries from an Adelaide supermarket
and hitting a security guard.
Gillard repeatedly mentions her alleged crimes, then claims to have taken the moral
high ground by not mentioning them earlier.
The next Watergate reminder comes from senator Howard Baker, who asked of Nixon: "What
did the president know and when did he know it?"
Today's revelations that Gillard's chief of staff made inquiries more than two years
ago over a possible investigation into Thomson might prompt a similar Baker-like observation.
Melbourne's Herald Sun says Labor looks to be on the run as the escalating credit card
scandal reaches the Prime Minister's office.
Ms Gillard is under attack over reports her chief of staff made inquiries in 2009 about
allegations against Mr Thomson's misappropriation of Health Services Union funds.
But the Prime Minister has hit back at the coalition, accusing Liberal senator George
Brandis of trying to influence the NSW Police Minister over the affair.
The scandal shows Ms Gillard's frustration in keeping her government together.
"But whenever an election comes, the possibility of Labor retaining power looks as
unlikely as Mr Thomson remaining an MP," it said.
Melbourne's The Age says Australia has much to learn from Apple's founder.
Through ingenuity, risk-taking, tenacity, surprise and charisma, Steve Jobs fashioned
an empire that, while technologically advanced and astonishingly lucrative, has never
lost the persuasive power of individual personality.
Jobs was the person responsible, in the first decade of the
new millennium, for expanding
Apple's orchard to include three innovations that not only enhanced existing technology
but proved how it could be applied to associated endeavours with wild global success,
the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Australian business could learn a thing or two from Jobs. Clinging to old models of
business and industry almost invariably proves to be folly.
New ideas and knowledge trump
the old, as Apple and Steve Jobs showed time after time.
AAP rs
KEYWORD: EDITORIALS
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