Canberra-based think tank The Australia Institute released a report yesterday entitled Mining the age of entitlement, in which it claimed that the mineral and fossil fuel industries were receiving billions of dollars in government handouts.
The report said state governments had spent $A17.6 billion over six years to support the mineral and fossil fuel industries.
It singled out Queensland as spending $9.5 billion on support over six years and said its expenditure in this financial year would match the amount spent on disability services and capital expenditure on hospitals.
The Queensland Resources Council slammed the report, saying the economic analysis would embarrass even the North Korean government.
“TAI has produced some howlers in the past but today’s effort takes the cake,” QRC CEO Michael Roche said yesterday.
Roche said the report detailed all manner of state government business expenditure but completely ignored the other side of the balance sheet.
“Almost every capital project undertaken by government-owned businesses for resources sector power supply and distribution, water, rail and port capacity gets a headline,” he said.
“Studiously and fraudulently avoided is acknowledgement that these projects were executed on a fully commercial basis, with resources companies entering into commercial contracts that underwrote the capital expenditure and provided commercial returns to government-owned businesses.”
The report said Western Australia had spent $6.2 billion over six years supporting mineral and fossil fuel industries.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA deputy CEO Nicole Roocke labelled the report as flimsy and of conveniently ignoring the facts in pursuit of the anti-resources headline.
“To include state government funding to Verve Energy, a state government energy asset which supplies power to Perth households and businesses in a list of subsidies to the resources sector is an error that university students wouldn’t make,” she said.
“State government funding for upgrades to state government owned ports such as Fremantle and Geraldton are not subsidies, but important infrastructure investments.”
The Australia Institute claimed that royalties paid to governments rarely compared with industry assistance, with Queensland planning to spend $1.5 billion on industry support this financial year, almost 60% of what it received in royalties.
However, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies CEO Simon Bennison said the report ignored other state and territory based taxes, fees, charges and levies.
“The Australia Institute has today released another anti-mining report, attacking the Industry, federal, state and territory governments,” he said.
“The report lacks credibility and overlooks the fact that the resources sector is providing the future economic growth in the Australian economy, especially in rural and regional communities.”
