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Fortescue chief Andrew Forrest ... "It will have no
Forrest lashes out at 'pathetic' Swan as mining tax battle escalates |
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THE chief of the mining giant Fortescue Metals Group, Andrew Forrest, has hit back at Wayne Swan as "pathetic" as the government struggles to win over the independents to impose its controversial mining tax. Mr Forrest last week attacked the proposed tax on the ground that the biggest three multinationals would pay zero in tax while the smaller mining firms would be paying millions. The Treasurer in Parliament accused Mr Forrest, the third-richest Australian with a fortune of $6 billion according to BRW, of pretending to be a small miner. He was trying to scuttle the tax to avoid paying it, Mr Swan said.
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"I think he's pathetic and it's a total lie," Mr Forrest told the Herald. "He's setting up a straw man to knock down. I have said point-blank that I am a large company, not much affected by the tax, but I am very concerned about junior mining companies. "What we would have to pay would be a rounding error - it won't have much effect on Fortescue at all. It will have no measurable effect on our share price. But the people who are just starting out will be slammed by the tax. How is that fair?" Mr Forrest himself was just starting out in 2003 when he developed iron ore prospects that BHP Billiton had once owned but allowed to expire. Mr Swan was avoiding the central point: "He's playing the man and not the ball, because he's already sold the ball to the big global miners," Mr Forrest said. The Gillard government negotiated the terms of the tax with BHP, Rio Tinto and the Swiss-based Xstrata. The government maintains that the biggest mining houses will pay most of the tax, which is budgeted to raise $11 billion over its first three years, from July 1 next year. But Mr Forrest and a delegation of smaller mining companies to Canberra last week produced research that estimated BHP and Rio would pay zero mining tax for at least the first five years. The reason was that the law would allow companies to deduct from their tax bills the value of their mineral deposits under the ground. The biggest miners have the biggest reserves. "This is the central point - everything else is a smokescreen," Mr Forrest said. He said that he and the other firms were not opposed to the tax but to its unfairness. Firms with profits under $50 million will be exempt from paying under the tax plan. The government lacks the vital support of independents to carry its mining tax in the House of Representatives. A parliamentary committee will hold hearings on the legislation tomorrow. Mr Forrest demanded that the government publish the assumptions that underlie the tax. A resource economist at Melbourne University, Professor John Freebairn, said it seemed unlikely the big multinationals would pay no tax but concurred that the government should release its assumptions. Authors: mining - Yahoo! News Search Results |