28 May 2014
Alex Heber
Business Insider
Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane has echoed comments made last year by iron ore heiress Gina Rinehart, telling resources industry representatives that mining has been treated like an ATM during the boom years.
“The reality is in the last six years this industry has not been given any credit for what it has done and has been treated like an ATM, that the government kept going back to get more money. That is in sharp contrast to where the government is today,” he said.
Speaking at the mining sector’s chief lobby group’s annual event Minerals Week in Canberra, Macfarlane said by “abolishing the mining tax and carbon tax, the associated compliance costs will also go”.
He said the government wants to “get out of the way” and let the industry do its job.
Just over a year ago Rinehart made headlines when she hit out at the previous federal government over tax regulation which she said treated the industry like an ATM.
“Mining and other resource industries aren’t just ATMs for people to draw from without that money first having to be earned and before that, giant investments made,” Rinehart said at the time.
Courtesy of Business Insider