THE MIKIVERSE

Don’t fall for super tax phony “debate”—

Nationalise Australia’s resources

The resource super tax debate sparked by the Henry tax review is completely phony, because only fully nationalising our resources will stop Australia being looted by the British Crown’s global raw materials cartel, declared Citizens Electoral Council leader, and candidate for Wills, Craig Isherwood today.

“This is a phony debate, because both sides look at our national resources from a purely monetarist standpoint, i.e. how much money can be extracted from them, rather than how those raw materials are deployed in the productive process, here in Australia and overseas,” Mr Isherwood said.

“Australia lets Rio Tinto and BHP use their global duopoly status in iron ore to charge as much money as they can, which drives up the cost of steel—the commodity which is essential to the function of practically every aspect of human life.

“All resources are looked at the same way—making paper money out of them through monopoly, extortion or speculation is more important than what those resources are essential to do.”

He said the Rudd government is doing the same thing with its resource super tax:

“Rudd has bankrupted Australia to bail out the banks, and he’s looking at extracting money out of the resource sector to fill the hole.

“He actually wants Rio and BHP and the rest to keep screwing the world for using these essential raw materials, because he wants them to make the ridiculous super profits so he can tax them.”

The CEC National Secretary reiterated his longstanding call for Australia’s resources to be nationalised:

“The only way for Australia to assert its sovereignty over its own resources, is to kick out the Queen’s Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and the other members of the Anglo-Dutch raw materials cartel, and nationalise the industry,” he said.

“We must develop and deploy those resources where they are needed in a reindustrialised Australian economy, and into our Asian-region neighbours through long-term, government-to-government contracts.

“Let’s go back to ‘old’ Labor’s patriotic fight for sovereignty, not seen since Whitlam’s Minerals and Energy Minister Rex Connor’s vow to ‘buy back the farm’.”

Exporting raw materials steals from Australia

Just one of the important reasons for nationalising the resource sector, Mr Isherwood insisted, is that when the industry exports mainly raw materials, with no value-adding, it robs Australia of wealth in the form of jobs and industries.

He cited then Prime Minister John Gorton’s 23^rd January, 1970 Federal Cabinet submission for the establishment of the Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC), which proposed to use the Federal Government’s credit rating to borrow funds for capital investment in processing raw materials in Australia. Using the example of one million tons of bauxite, the submission* showed that:

exporting the primary product earned:	$5 million
exporting after converting into alumina:	$27 million
exporting after converting into aluminium:	$120 million
exporting aluminium products earned:	$600 million!

“These figures show that our current so-called mining ‘boom’ is actually looting Australia to death,” Mr Isherwood said.

He concluded, “Only nationalising the sector, will ensure the mining and processing of our raw materials is conducted in the national interest, and in the interest of future generations.”

* John Gorton: he did it his way, by Ian Hancock, p. 267.