A mining lobby group has hit out at the selective leaks and ongoing speculation over recommendations from the Henry Tax Review, saying it is undermining already vulnerable investor confidence.
A mining lobby group has hit out at the selective leaks and ongoing speculation over recommendations from the Henry Tax Review, saying it is undermining already vulnerable investor confidence.
The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies today called speculation that the review will scrap state-based mining royalties and introduce new environmental taxes as both "irresponsible" and "unwise".
Chief executive Simon Bennison said the selective leaking of parts of the review by the government and subsequent commentary did little to benefit the industry.
"We understand the politics," Mr Bennison said. "The Government is sending up test balloons to gauge the response to tricky bits of the review before releasing their formal response.
"While this practise might meet the political needs of the Government, it is far from helpful for the industry.
"Ill-informed speculation about what might or might not change as a result of the Henry Tax Review only serves to further undermine already vulnerable investor confidence.
"The ability of emerging mining and exploration companies to raise capital often depends on the confidence of its investors. Uncertainty in the regulatory environment has a direct and detrimental impact on that confidence."
Mr Bennison said that if the review does recommend changes to the mining royalties system or introduce environmental taxes, the government needed to layout all the options and consult with industry.
"We urge the Government to refrain from playing politics with investor confidence and release the review in its entirety as soon as possible," Mr Bennison said.
Meantime, the state opposition today called for a bipartisan approach to combat the threat to state government royalties from the Henry Tax Review.
"This recommendation applies uniformly across the States and means the Commonwealth then returns revenue to the States," Mr McGowan said.
"Both the State Labor and Liberal Parties have opposed this latest proposal, and have opposed it historically as well.
"Removing the State's capacity to raise revenue and transferring that power to the Commonwealth has never worked for WA even though it has worked for other States.
"The most damaging example of this was the implementation of the GST in 1999.
"The arrangement signed between the then-Liberal State Government and Federal Liberal Government has cost Western Australia billions since then and the effect is getting worse every year."
Mr McGowan said by 2012 Western Australians will pay around 11 per cent of the total GST revenue, but the state will only receive 5.7 per cent of the proceeds.