As many of you are aware, the mining tax policy consultation group swept through Sydney late last week. Led by Australian business sector veteran Don Argus and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, the Policy Transition Group (PTG) held several meetings with stakeholders during the two days they were in town.
The Institute participated in one of the stakeholder meetings alongside representatives of the Big 4 accounting firms and other professional associations. However, the meeting was not quite what I had been expecting.
Since I attended the meeting, a number of people have asked me what I thought about the process – the way in which the government and the PTG are going about putting the design of the new mining tax together. Unfortunately, my response to that question has typically been one of concern.
The major question to come out of this process for me is whether or not the PTG will be able to influence the government and its agencies in the final design of how the new Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) will operate, given it is mainly made up of external executives from the resources sector.
At the Sydney meeting, we were advised that the Treasury Department had already started drafting the legislation surrounding the new MRRT. In order to draft legislation, Treasury must have a pretty good idea of how the detailed policy design is going to work.
Does that mean that the government and Treasury have already pre-judged the outcomes from the PTG consultation process? If so, is that really the way we want to go about critically important reforms to our tax system in the future? You be the judge.
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