This page is a summary of the Austalia Institute paper: Mining the age of entitlementState government assistance to the minerals and fossil fuel sector - Mick Peel, Roderick Campbell and Richard Denniss |
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In the Over a six-year period, state governments in Australia spent $17.6 billion supporting the mineral and fossil fuel industries. Queensland’s assistance was by far the largest of all states, totalling $9.5 billion, followed by Western Australia’s at $6.2 billion. In 2013-14 Queensland is planning on spending $1.5 billion on industry assistance, almost 60 per cent of what it will receive in royalties. This assistance takes many forms. Sometimes it is a direct cash payment. For example, the New South Wales government gave multinational coal companies $10 million in 2009 as an ‘assistance package’. Other times it comes in the form of discounted access to services provided by the state and its businesses – Queensland has provided the coal industry with ‘concessions’ on access to rail services worth over $1 billion between 2012-13 and 2013-14. Often assistance comes in the form of infrastructure or projects that wholly or partly benefit the minerals and fossil fuel industries. Sometimes this expenditure brings a financial return, as in the case of Western Australia’s hundreds of millions of dollars spent on developing port infrastructure. Sometimes it doesn’t – the New South Wales government is unlikely to see any return on its $76 million expenditure on the Cobbora Coal project. (at Dunedoo) At the federal level, subsidies for the mining industry, totaled $4.5 billion in 2013, up from $4.0 billion in 2012-3 |
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The vast bulk of coal transport expenditure and concessions came from Queensland – more than $7.6 billion – with some $333 million in New South Wales. |
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Royalties in NSW are a far smaller percentage of the state budget than Qld. |
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Victoria If the full costs of assistance could be broken out from the $188 million budget of the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation’s Energy and Resources section, assistance would almost certainly be greater than royalties. Coal royalties are charged on the basis of energy content, resulting in royalties of around $0.50 per tonne, |
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South Australia has very little coal. |
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http://www.marketforces.org.au/Market forces have followed the money and come to similar conclusions.
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Source: http://www.marketforces.org.au/ffs/where-your-taxes-go/ |