Changes made to coal licence report, inquiry told
A corruption inquiry has heard that an independent probity report into a coal licence given to former union leader John Maitland and his associates was changed by the top bureaucrat in then New South Wales Labor mining minister Ian Macdonald’s department before it went to the government, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Richard Sheldrake, who is still the director-general of the NSW Department of Primary Industries, admitted to the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Monday that he drafted an additional paragraph in the August 23, 2010, report by probity firm O’Connor Marsden & Associates.
He agreed that in hindsight it would have been “more appropriate” for the report to go straight to the Department of Premier and Cabinet without his involvement but said “it didn’t occur to [him] at the time”
The ICAC is investigating a decision by Macdonald to gift a lucrative coal exploration licence to Doyles Creek Mining, a company then chaired by Maitland, in December 2008. There was no competitive tender.
Garnaut sees major flaws in mining tax
The minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) is highly flawed and might never raise any revenue in its current form, leading economist Professor Ross Garnaut has told a Senate committee, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Prof Garnaut said the tax was unlikely to deliver any money to the government because miners could deduct past expenditures worth billions of dollars as well as state royalties.
“We need to recognise we have a big problem with federal financial relations,” Prof Garnaut said.
“This issue is part of a bigger issue that includes the distribution of GST.
MRRT puts miners at a disadvantage, says MCA
Tax on Australian mining companies is “Mt Everest” compared with international tax rates, the head of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has told a Senate inquiry into the minerals resources rent tax, according to the Australian Financial Review.
MCA chief executive Mitch Hooke said he did not consider the MRRT necessary for all Australians to share the resources boom benefits.
“This new tax cannot be justified in the first place on the premise of spreading the benefits of the boom for all Australians,” Hooke told the inquiry in Melbourne.
He said that last year the mining sector paid $20 billion in company tax and royalties to the federal and state governments.
“The mineral resources rent tax destroys value in the after-tax adjusted returns companies can expect; that’s what goes to the disincentive to invest.”
