Just Rattle Your Jewelry
by digby
People are always asking why Americans don’t protest like the they do in the rest of the world. It’s a good question. In Australia, for instance, the aggrieved don’t sit around and whine, they take to the streets to protest government policies:
Many of the placard-waving protesters gathered in a Perth park wore suits and ties, and impassioned speeches were delivered from the back of a flat-bed truck by two billionaires, including Australia’s richest woman.
Gina Rinehart’s pearls glistened in the sunlight as she bellowed through a megaphone: “Axe the tax!” Ms Rinehart has a personal fortune of $4.8bn (£2.7bn). Andrew Forrest, in monogrammed worker’s overalls, told the well-mannered crowd that Australia was “turning Communist”. Mr Forrest is the country’s fourth richest person, worth an estimated $4.2bn.
Both Mr Forrest and Ms Rinehart have amassed their wealth from digging up iron ore in the remote Pilbara region. Like other mining magnates, they have grown fabulously rich during a resources boom based largely on China’s insatiable demand for the coal, iron, nickel and other minerals that lie in abundance beneath Australia’s rust-red soil.
Now Kevin Rudd’s Labour government is planning to levy an extra tax on the mining industry, and the industry is furious. The issue has dominated the political agenda for weeks, and is even threatening to torpedo Mr Rudd’s chance of being returned to power at an election due to be held before the end of this year
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I suppose it’s good that we aren’t the only ones who are screwed up. Unfortunately, except for the fact that Jamie Dimon isn’t protesting in the streets, it’s not all that different from the dynamic here in the US, particularly this:
For their part, the mining companies, led by the multi-nationals BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, claim the tax will reduce their competitiveness and threaten thousands of jobs. Amid much fanfare, they have already shelved a number of projects. They have also launched a major advertising campaign. The government has responded with its own advertisements, using $38m of public money. Before coming to power, Mr Rudd promised to curb taxpayer-funded advertising on political issues.
So far, the miners appear to be winning the argument. A poll commissioned by the industry, and conducted in nine marginal seats, found 48 per cent of people opposed to the super tax, with 28 per cent in favour. Nearly one in three said they were less likely to vote for Labour because of it.
This week’s rally – organised by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC), which represents the smaller operators – was timed to coincide with a visit by Mr Rudd to Perth, the city that is Australia’s resources powerhouse.
As the Prime Minister addressed a lunch hosted by the Perth Press Club in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Ms Rinehart was filling her lungs with air in a nearby park. “And what are we gonna tell those jittery Labor MPs in marginal seats?” demanded the normally reclusive billionaire through her loudspeaker. “Axe the tax! Axe the tax!” chanted the crowd.
“And what does our Premier [the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett] say?” asked Ms Rinehart, almost hoarse. “Axe the tax! Axe the tax!” replied the protesters. She went on: “And Kerry [Stokes, proprietor of the state’s newspaper], please listen: what should our West Australian newspaper be saying? Axe the tax!” More cheers from the crowd.
Mr Forrest once called Mr Rudd a close friend. Now he is the prime minister’s most outspoken critic. At the rally, he declared: “We represent so much more than mining; we represent the hopes and dreams of millions of people who depend on the mining industry, who depend on the resource sector for a strong Australian economy.” (His hyperbole did not go unnoticed by sober commentators; the industry employs about 130,000 people.)
As the crowd waved their neatly written placards – handed out by AMEC, and bearing slogans such as “Super tax, super stupid” and “Super tax kills jobs” – Mr Forrest noted that China had been debating a lower resources tax to assist its industry. “I ask you: which communist [country] is turning capitalist, and which capitalist is turning communist,” he proclaimed.
I guess the fact that the tea partiers turn out to be well off retirees shouldn’t surprise us so much, should it?
This whole thing reminds me of the caller I heard on Limbaugh years ago, who said that he wanted his employer to get tax cuts because it meant that he might get a raise someday. I thought the poor fool was a peculiarly American product of right wing propaganda. I can’t say it makes me feel good to find out that it’s a global phenomenon.
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