Mining the Truth

Driving back from Thargomindah via St George and Roma this week, I couldn’t help being reminded of the mining activity exploding in this part of the world.

Whether you notice the clapboard signs on most byroads or the state of the road which is slowly being destroyed by the oversize loads of mining infrastructure being moved from the coast, the marks are everywhere.

You can’t help but be reminded by some salient facts – one of them being that if you don’t book accommodation at least a month ahead, you’ll be squeezed out by the exploration companies and their block bookings.

Listening to a radio report of a study released by the Australia Institute piqued my curiosity, so I Googled it when I arrived home after a 2500km round trip.

It makes very interesting reading.

There are a range of assumptions held about the resources boom. Let’s have a look at the reality.

Assumption 1 - Many mines are owned by Australians and return profits to their Australian owners. Not so. In 2009 -10 mining profits amounted to $54 billion, of which 83% or $42 billion went overseas.

Assumption 2 – Mining is a strong employer of Australians. It depends what you mean by “strong”. In May 2011, 217,100 people were employed in the mining industry from a workforce of over 11 million. That makes mining one of the smallest employment sectors in the country, behind (for example) the Arts and Recreation Services sector.

Assumption 3 – Mining companies contribute large amounts of money to the wealth of the nation through taxes. Wrong. The average rate of corporate tax paid by the mining industry in 2008 – 2009 was 13.9%, well below the theoretical 30% tax rate, and a bloody site less than yours truly pays. One of the reasons for this is the generous tax deductions available to the mining industry. I’m not sure if the diesel fuel subsidy payable to miners is factored in to this calculation.

Assumption 4 – Mining provides positive spinoffs to other local industries. Not really. Mining drives up the exchange rate, and the costs of skilled labour for other sectors. It drives up the prices of raw materials used in construction as well as the services associated with the construction industry. Talk to those involved in trying to get the thousands of kilometres of flood damaged roads in Queensland repaired about the cost and availability of equipment and manpower hire in the middle of the mining boom. The supreme irony in this is that these same roads have been buggered by the miners using them in a flood damaged state.

Another fascinating aspect of this report is what it reveals about public perceptions of the mining industry. Take a look at the graph on page 8 of this report. It clearly shows that the community has swallowed a number of myths about the mining industry. Obviously, the propaganda (a great deal of which we are seeing on billboards up and down the Warrego) paid for by the big miners is working.

Quoting from the report –

“To sum up, Australians believe that the mining sector: 

Employs nine times more workers than it actually does

Accounts for three times as much economic activity as it actually does 

Is 30 per cent more Australian-owned than it actually is.”

There is also this neat summary of winners and losers –

“So who benefits and who loses?

Mining workers have of course experienced the direct effect of the mining boom as have some of the firms and their workers that have experienced the ripple effects of the mining boom. 

Ordinary wage and salary earners have seen no boom in the rate of growth in their real wages. 

Pensioners receive indexed pensions and, by definition, indexed payments do not increase in real terms so there is no extra benefit for pensioners. (The exception was the $30 a week increase in the 2009-10 budget as part of the government‘s response to the global financial crisis.)

Homeowners are forced to pay higher interest rates across the board as the Reserve Bank seeks to control overheating which is actually concentrated largely in the resource-intensive regions of Australia. 

Superannuants with the median balance of those approaching retirement would be better off by around $2 a week, or 0.6 per cent of the age pension, as a result of the mining boom.

Workers in others sectors of the economy that are trade exposed, such as those working in manufacturing, tourism and education, are experiencing reductions in employment and less job security.

Foreign owners of resource stocks have seen their profits rise enormously and the capital value of their Australian investments increase as the exchange rate has risen.”

Identify which of these groups you belong to and figure out how much good the mining boom is doing you. It's not doing much for me, my family and my community. Roll on a Resource Super Profits Tax.

Sold out.....

Jellybeans on the signing tablecloth

Sometimes you should just trust your judgement.

Yesterday before the launch the manager at Mary Ryan's in town told me she needed to stock only one box (60 copies) of Jellybeans in the Jungle. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be enough, and that was before the WIN interview, the ABC interview, and the piece in the local rag.

By 1pm they were sold out, and when I wandered back at 3pm to pick up the Jellybeaned patterned tablecloth, (pic) she asked me how soon I could deliver more copies.

There were jellybeans on the tablecloth and bowls of jellybeans on the signing table.

I don’t know what became of them (those in the bowls that is).

The tablecloth will be returned to the school library I borrowed it from on Monday. I’d better give them a complementary copy. They were very helpful. I spied the jellybeans whilst attending a meeting with teaching colleagues, and they seemed to fit in visually with the theme. I’ve had a lot of trouble explaining that the book is not a kid’s story.

After reading the title and learning that it was written by a teacher, most jump to that conclusion.

It was great to have two mates from 5 Platoon at the signing, as well as the principal (over eighty and still going strong) who got me back on the rails as a teacher after RTA. Ian Macfarlane was generous. It’s pity there aren’t a few more in parliament as straight and genuine as he is.

The cheque for over a grand at the end of the day was also OK……

Sanity at Last

At long last, a decision has been made about asylum seekers that restores my faith in my country.

The High Court has redeemed us, and thrown a giant spanner in the works of offshore processing.

Political posturing aside, (and there is plenty of this from both sides) this decision is probably the most significant change in the view of the High Court on this issue since the Tampa incident. Put simply, it throws the nonsense of off shoring our refugees right out the window. The various tin pot administrations who are happy to take the metaphorical forty pieces of silver provided will be the only people worse off.

The interesting issue now, is whether the government has enough courage to begin processing all boat arrivals on the mainland, and to return to the structures that worked quietly and effectively pre-Tampa.

Zoning areas for immigration would be another move that would assist, as would the introduction of an Australia card which refugees and everyone else would be obliged to carry. The fact that the carrying of an ID card has ever been a political issue in this country is beyond bizarre.

But that would require ethics and courage, neither of which is evident in either of the two major parties these days.

Celebratory Gunfire

Anti-aircraft or celebratory?

Given recent events in Libya, no doubt you’ve watched endless and often-repeated footage of individuals firing all manner of weapons in the air in celebration.

This usually happens in the Middle East, but it is not confined to that part of the world, and has been observed in South America, the Philippines and the Balkans.

There are reports of it happening in the USA.

Apparently, Kentucky is the home of celebratory gunfire in the USA. It’s in the Onion, so must be true.

I’ve often wondered what happens to all those rounds fired skywards. I had the experience of accidentally firing a 7.62 round through a double-skinned tent once, so understand very well that damage can be done both on the way up as well as the way down. I was lucky, as the leak created was on the other side of the tent from where I slept.

But that’s another story entirely.

Apparently there are many recorded fatalities, and in some places, a great deal of damage has been done to roofing and eaves. Given the frequent spectacle of ute-mounted ZU-23 heavy machine guns (“technicals”) blazing away in celebration recently in Libya, it’s understandable that NATO aircraft generally fly higher than their effective range. The 23mm explosive projectile would make a sieve out of an aircraft.

Perhaps they’ve not heard of blanks?

Thinking about it, blanks in a real conflict would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. I remember that we had blank firing attachments on our SLRs in training in Australia, but they never saw the light of day in SVN for obvious reasons.

Celebratory gunfire in SVN would have been called “unauthorised discharge” and would have earned nasty regimental penalties.

Johnny Jump-ups

My bride calls these things “Johnny Jump-ups”.

Their botanical name is Viola Tricolor, and according to Wikipedia, they’re also known as Heartsease. They’re a common European wild flower, growing as an annual or short-lived perennial. They’ve been introduced into North America, where they’ve spread widely.

I’m glad they’ve decided to live at our place. Spring is on the way, and the garden is slowly coming to life.

Truckies

James St Toowoomba

Truckies have been in the news recently with the quaintly-named “Convoy of no Confidence” attracting media.

Here in Toowoomba (where it passed through about 8am on Saturday morning) it was scarcely noticed.

The normal gridlock that is James St looked like it always did at 8am – a bloody mess. It’s an area ideally avoided at the best of times, but occasionally it is simply plain dangerous.

James St is (in theory) four lanes in both directions, but it is narrow, and lined by very large trees. In Toowoomba, there are riots and disorder if trees are removed, so they’re left in place, and pruned so that they look like bonsai gone mad, and the larger trucks have to hug the centre lane to avoid them.

This compounds the gridlock, as sections of James St (which goes right through the centre of the city) are pretty steep.

Routinely, trucks catch fire or break down in James St, and you need a cut lunch to get from one side of town to the other if you use it. There was a major emergency a few years ago when a fuel tanker came to grief – police, firies, the whole deal. If one of these things did go up in the middle of the CBD, the scenario of ignited fuel running down the steep street doesn’t bear thinking about.

I am very familiar with truckies as I share the Warrego Highway with them, and each year the “sharing” involves 20000km of driving.

On the whole, the driving standard of your average Truckie has improved in the last couple of decades, mainly as a result of the cowboys being squeezed out of the industry because of escalating costs. The exceptions are the drivers of the cattle crates. They are always in a helluva hurry, their vehicles often look like they’re not maintained and they trail a mist of cattle piss which harbours Q Fever. It doesn’t do much for the amenity of James St. The pong remains long after the trucks have gone.

What is ironic about trucks on the Warrego, is the fact that it is paralleled much of the way to Roma by a perfectly good rail line. This rail line is almost always free of traffic, except for coal trucks from Felton. Nobody makes a quick quid out of rail in this country, so the trucks use the Warrego which is rapidly being wrecked by the grain trucks, the cattle crates and the mining infrastructure being carted west on the backs of the trucks.

The miners don’t give a stuff about the road, even to the extent where they casually wreck public infrastructure in the process.

Decades of corrupt policies have allowed this nonsense to persist, so it is now embedded in national infrastructure. The subsidies paid to road transport are amazing, and whilst they continue, nothing will change. (See p55 in the linked report).

Given the billions paid in subsidies to this industry, the slogan “Truckies carry this country” should read “This country carries truckies”.

Christians in Iraq

Iraqi Christians carry coffins during a funeral service at a church in Baghdad last year.

We’ve heard plenty about the triumph of democracy in Iraq.

It’s interesting to compare the lot of Christians in Iraq before the invasion of the Coalition of the Willing.

This quote from an article by Archbishop Cranmer sums it up fairy neatly.

 Saddam was too preoccupied with persecuting the Kurds and Shi’as to bother much with the Christians, some of whom, like Tariq Aziz, rose to the highest offices of state under his regime. By the time of the 1991 Gulf War, they numbered about one million. By the time of 2003 invasion of Iraq, they had fallen to about 800,000. Now there are about 500,000 remaining. And they live each day as if it were their last, having seen their churches bombed, their congregations sprayed with bullets, and their priests brutally beheaded and dismembered. Christian boys are being crucified and girls are being raped.

I can’t vouch for his account, but the numbers, at least, are accurate.

The Catholic Leader has also been reporting on the conditions for Iraqi Catholics.

It’s interesting that we hear so little about this in the MSM.

I guess it doesn’t fit the narrative.