Key Greens’ initiative for tax forum: Add gold to the MRRT to boost funding for services by $1.8b

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown today released new research showing that adding gold to the Labor Government’s proposed mining tax on coal and iron ore, as a minimum reform to that watered-down tax, would add $1.8 billion to government revenue over the next 10 years.

"Reflecting Australia’s status as the world’s second-largest producer of gold after China, if the original mining tax not been abandoned in 2010, gold would have contributed even more. This new report shows additional revenues from gold would have been about $8.2 billion over the next 10 years,” Senator Brown said today.

“While still advocating a return to the Treasury recommended super profits tax to give Australians a fairer return on their mineral wealth, and setting aside proceeds in a sovereign wealth fund for major projects such as high-speed rail, the Greens recommend adding gold as a first step.”

“Adding gold - another resource where extraction is dominated by foreign-owned companies - would unlock $1.8 billion over 10 years that could go towards funding smaller-scale projects such as bikeway networks for our towns and cities and the restoration of federal funding to Australia’s iconic cultural institutions.”

“Expanding the mining tax to include gold is a key item the Greens will take to next week’s tax forum. Both the IMF and the OECD have criticised the restriction of the MRRT to iron ore and coal, and this new report shows there is no justification for excluding gold,” Senator Brown said.