The Horrors of a Liberal Party Budget

Where do I begin? This is no rant. This is just a considered musing on the nature of budget cuts when the cuts themselves don't balance out.

Let's look at something near and dear to the Australian heart: mining.

This is how the ABC has summarised the government's stance on mining for 2014:

• The Government will provide $100 million over four years for minerals exploration, by giving small explorers not making any taxable income access to a refundable tax offset for their Australian shareholders.
• The Government has spared mining an increase in the diesel fuel excise. Currently commercial vehicles used in mining and agriculture get a rebate on the diesel fuel excise that drops it to six cents per litre. Before the budget there had been calls to raise this in line with the petrol fuel excise.
• The budget also outlines $3.4 billion over the next three years from the abolition of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax.

So hang on a second, let's take this step by step.

The Abbott government will provide $100 million over four years to explore mining as a tax offset. That means $100 million taken from somewhere else in the budget, like for example: the Family Tax Benefit, which amounted to $50 million.

So families will have to live under greater hardship so companies which aren't making money yet from mineral exploration in lands that actually belong to indigenous australians can see if it is possible to find minerals. Is this risk management? Why are we being sacrificed on the altar of corporate interests?

Next the fuel excise. Why are we giving companies a break on the fuel excise? They already have tax deductions on the use of fuel because it's a running cost of the company. They don't need further tax breaks so they can make more money, while the Aussie battler on the street has to pay fuel excise. This makes no sense.

Then comes the abolition of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax which amounts to $3.4 billion. Now, if we look at our tax dollars in the past, 47% of government revenue comes from individual income tax and 22.6% from company and resource taxation. So already we were the heavy lifters in terms of revenue. Not conglomerates that make billions a year and should by rights contribute a percentage of their profits to the country they profit from.

Can you see where I'm heading? Mr Abbot and his minions are fleecing off while they give their mates like Gina Rinehart a break.