“No one country has a monopoly on the development of resources,” he said at the annual general meeting yesterday.
“Countries compete for capital because the resources are only of real value when the capital and skills are applied to develop them.
“There are many opportunities around the world for large-scale resource projects.
“Those that will be developed first are in the countries that are competitive in terms of flexible labour regimes, efficient business regulation and, importantly, a stable and fair tax system.
“It is the right of governments to change policy parameters, for example tax regimes, and to decide if, where and when resources will be developed.
“However, it is important that a country’s competitiveness, and its attractiveness as an investment destination, is not negatively affected in the process.
“Major, export oriented resource projects require billions of dollars to be invested. These are complex, large and long-term decisions.”
With his words clearly aimed at the Gillard government, Nasser also made the point that BHP was Australia’s largest taxpayer and had paid more than $7 billion in company taxes and royalties this calendar year, while other taxes generated $850 billion from its employees.
Former BHP chairman Don Argus is leading the federal government’s Policy Transition Group which is expected to hand in its first report next month.
But a separate Senate committee on the tax is calling for chiefs from BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata to give evidence and shed more light on their MRRT bargain struck with the Gillard government in July.
Greens senator and committee chairman Mathias Cormann said this meeting would take place before the end of this year, according to Bloomberg.
The additional pressure on the big three and the federal government comes as lower house independents Andrew Wilkie, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Crook threaten to block the tax if they do not receive more details about the MRRT.
The MRRT aims to generate $10.5 billion in tax revenue from the coal and iron ore sectors within its first two years starting July, 2012.
But there are question marks over whether the watered-down version of the previous super-profits tax proposal will hit this tax target.
“They are estimates based on assumptions of a lot of different variables,” BDO tax manager Larras Moore previously told ILN.
