Nobody really knows what was going through the noggin’ of English poet Elliot when he penned the immortal lines: “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” in his famous 1925 poem The Hollow Men.

But MDwas reminded of the lines a few weeks ago as he watched the convoluted death throes of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax.

It was a curiously muted finale for what must rank as Australia’s dumbest tax ever, masterminded in 2010 by former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and ex-treasurer Wayne Swan.

The repeal in the Senate didn’t generate any fireworks, recalling the early battles by Mining Inc against Kevin Rudd’s original version – just a few short press releases from industry groups and a “whimper” by one of its architects.

“As mining production expands, Australia now without a profit-based tax to collect a decent return for our resources,” Wayne Swan lamented in a tweet.

The former treasurer must have a generous interpretation of “decent”, given that the MRRT was an abject failure on the revenue-raising front.

Rather than $10 billion-plus, as originally forecast, the last Treasury estimate before the repeal was $669 million generated over four years.

Even that might have been too optimistic given the recent plunge in iron ore prices.

Given the irrelevance of the tax – it cost much more to administer than what it earned in receipts from BHP, Rio Tinto and so on – it is difficult to measure how much the MRRT impacted mining investment.

But its extinction is welcome as tumbling iron ore prices pile the pressure onto second-tier miners.

Thankfully the latest price slump is being accompanied by a fall in the local dollar, ameliorating some of the pain.

If nothing else, the MRRT debacle will make governments think long and hard about introducing any new taxes based on mine profits, which are notoriously hard to predict.

So why not target a more reliable, steadily growing cash cow known as the Big Four Banks?

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for instance, last month posted a 13% increase in annual net profit to $8.6 billion from doing nothing more strenuous than recycling money – buying cash off the Government at official rates and on-selling it to us with a margin on top.

A tax on super fat bankers might be a tough policy call for Tony Abbot’s pro-business Government, which has been actively lopping “big” taxes in its first year in office, rather than rolling them out.

But he does need to find revenue from somewhere to prop up the ever-strained budget.

One wag suggested the Federal Assistance Resources Tax, or FART, where corpulent bankers would be taxed in similar fashion to the mining tax and the proceeds used to refund miner’s previous MRRT payments.

In essence, a Tony Abbot FART would recognise that the shoe is now on the other foot: banks, benefitting from the rush to secure risk-free dividends, are raking in the big bucks while miners’ profits are in shrinkage mode.

A loud and widely distributed FART is definitely needed to clear the air – Canberra was happy to robustly tax mining when it was up, so it would be nice to see some help when it’s down.

Of course MD probably is living in a fool’s paradise.

But he’s always found that to be an agreeable location when it comes to insulating one’s self from the hot air emanating from the nation’s capital.

Unfortunately WA Premier Colin Barnett – one of the loudest critics of the MRRT – is also generating flatulence on this side of the continent via his planned GASSER – Gold Attack Scheme Supplies Extra Royalties.

GASSER is not universally admired in WA politics: The Nationals oppose it, the Liberal party faithful seem cool on the idea, and Mines Minister Bill Marmion apparently let slip recently that his favourite singer is Neil Young (biggest hit: Heart of Gold).

Meanwhile, the Gold Royalties Response Group is about to step up its media promotion following a successful radio campaign, which emphasised the number of jobs in the industry (25,000), along with taxes and royalties already paid ($300 million).

There is a sense of urgency among the anti-GASSER mob as WA’s mineral royalty rate review committee is expected to meet for the last time Friday before delivering its report to Cabinet.

And you can bet that the Emperor will be keen for Cabinet to vote on the issue before the peak flatulence season, otherwise known as Christmas.

*MD is a columnist for affiliated site MiningNews.net. First published in MNN yesterday.