UPDATE: Australia Anti-Mining Tax Advertising To Restart This Week

26th Jul 2010 08:23

(Adds details of press conference, Swan response) By David Fickling Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Australia's main lobby group for small and mid-sized miners will start a three-week advertising campaign against the country's proposed mining tax changes this week, the group said Monday. The Association of Mining & Exploration Companies Chief Executive Simon Bennison said the tax plans needed to be withdrawn until "full and transparent industry consultation" has been done. Two parallel campaigns against the tax plans will also begin in coming days, Bennison said, led by the United Retail Federation and the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "If we can't influence government to come back to the table we're very keen to ensure the Australian community has very full awareness of what this means after the election." Australia is due to hold a general election Aug. 21, called by Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard after her predecessor Kevin Rudd lost the support of the party during a bruising fight with the mining industry over a previous version of the tax. Advertising against that model by the Minerals Council of Australia, the country's peak mining body, contributed to the embattled political atmosphere which preceded Rudd's ouster. The Minerals Council has publicly supported the revised version of the tax, but Bennison warned the fight was far from over. If the Prime Minister thinks that the mining tax issue is dead and buried, she is wrong," he said. Australia's Treasurer Wayne Swan accused the latest lobbying of being politically motivated. "Elements associated with the Liberal party" were behind the campaign in his home state of Queensland, he told reporters on the campaign trail. "I would just hope, as we try and work our way through all the issues, that those partisan elements that are coalescing around this...don't muddy the waters too much." The accusation was "a nonsense", Bennison said: "This is a very apolitical approach. We're talking in the context of an election but we've held this line (on the tax) since May 2" when the original version of the tax was announced. However, the United Retail Federation is led by Scott Driscoll, a prominent supporter of opposition Liberal-National coalition leader Tony Abbott, while the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry's president is David Goodwin. Goodwin stood for Australia's Senate as a candidate for the National Party during the 2007 election. Bennison said the advertising campaign would initially be for three weeks, taking it to within a few days of election day, after which it would be assessed on a week-by-week basis. It wouldn't be targeted to any particular regions of the country, and would be funded by AMEC's members dependent on individual contributions. No numbers were given for the cost of the campaign, although Bennison said it would be "far less" than speculation about figures in the tens of millions of dollars. A person familiar with the advertising industry said that government and the Minerals Council had spent around A$20 million each on their campaigns. Bennison was joined Monday by other business figures opposed to the tax, including the Queensland CCI's Goodwin; Western Australia CCI Chairman James Pearson; John Cummings, chairman of the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia; David Flanagan, chief executive of Western Australian miner Atlas Iron Ltd. (AGO.AU); and David Sutton, a director at Proteus EPCM, a Perth-based mining engineer. Australia's smaller miners have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks in their objections to a compromise deal on the mine tax struck between the government and the country's three biggest mine operators after Gillard took office. AMEC argues that the deal was weighted in the interests of the big three miners, BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), Rio Tinto Ltd. (RTP) and Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN). "All that has happened is a secret deal that has been done with three multi-national mining companies, to the exclusion of 99% of the industry, with the result that only a two page document has been produced which lists the general principles for a new mining tax," Bennison said. Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. (FMG.AU) Chief Executive Andrew Forrest, in a press conference with AMEC, last week said the revised proposals were a "retrograde tax" that were "specifically suited" to the purposes of the big three companies. -By David Fickling, Dow Jones Newswires; +61 2 8272 4689; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 26, 2010 03:23 ET (07:23 GMT)