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Source: Reuters -
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The Australian government signalled on Friday that it was now open to renegotiating the 40% headline rate of its proposed mining tax, which has angered miners and worried voters.
The Kevin Rudd government has previously rejected appeals from
the mining industry, the nation's biggest export earner, to cut the
rate of the controversial tax, which has led several major miners
to threaten to cancel more than $20 billion in new projects.
But Treasurer Wayne Swan, when asked about the 40% rate on Friday,
declined to comment, indicating that this would now form part of
fresh negotiations with miners.
"I am not going to go into a discussion about all of the detail. We are going to go into these negotiations again with good faith in a genuine way and resolve this matter," he said.
Swan was speaking on national radio a day after backing a ruling-party move to dump Rudd and replace him as prime minister with Australia's first female leader, Julia Gillard, who immediately promised to negotiate with miners on the tax.
Swan welcomed the miners' decision on Thursday to withdraw their anti-tax advertising campaign, which followed an initial announcement from Gillard, at her first news conference as leader, to scrap the government's own pro-tax ad campaign.
"We are genuine in our desire to negotiate with the industry," said Swan, who is also now deputy prime minister.
"The PM (Gillard) yesterday called on the industry to open its mind and we have seen an act of good faith from the industry."
Gillard has ruled out scrapping the proposed tax altogether, stressing that miners should pay more, given the huge profits they have been making from state-owned resources.
But she has set out a much more open negotiating stance with the miners, suggesting that she would like to strike a compromise with them before she calls fresh elections before year-end.
