Fairfax Manoeuvrings: Whose over-inflated sense of entitlement is operating here?

According to that Clayton’s journalist Andrew Bolt; THE hysteria over billionaire Gina Rinehart is not just funny. Have you ever seen so many hypocrites, wasters and self-servers pretending to be principled?.... We hear instead a lot of people with an outsized sense of entitlement, presuming a right to have property they do not own be run to suit them and their interests.

A statement which makes me wonder whose sense of entitlement has led to Ms. Rinehart’s demand for three board seats and a degree of editorial control.

It would seem that her personal sense of entitlement is based on the immense wealth she garners from family mining interests which makes her the country’s richest person.

However, it is less clear what she actually contributes to either the common good or national life.

According to Australian Tax Office Taxation Statistics 2009-10 there were 5,395 individuals, 4,285 companies, 518 partnerships and 931 trusts involved in the mining industry.

The mining industry had a combined tax liability in that financial year of a mere $4,168 million on a total assessable income of $139,593 million. Companies in this sector represented 6.3 per cent of the tax liabilities of all corporations operating in Australia.

To put that into perspective, in 2009-10 manufacturing companies had a tax liability of $23,235 million on a total assessable income of $265,687 million. Companies in this sector represented 12 per cent of the tax liabilities of all corporations operating in Australia.

Even our Northern Rivers retailers belong to a national industry group which has a taxation burden which is more than double that of the mining sector.

Finally, in the 2009-10 financial year 3,138 out of the 4,285 companies in the mining industry paid no tax at all.

So the mining industry remains the national industry sector with the highest percentage of tax exempt companies. A feat it manages due to the high number of tax deductions, rebates, concessions, exemptions, offsets etc. available to mining interests – including tax deductions available on any state royalties payable.

Whilst, as ever, the vast majority of taxation being paid to the Commonwealth still comes from the pockets of salary and wage earners.

Playing the politics of envy with a fixed smile.........

Left to Right: Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Twiggy Forrest

Last week one North Coast Voices reader sent me a link to the Fair Go For Billionaires’ Wealth Calculator. Unfortunately my annual income just wouldn’t register, so I went to the mainstream media for some examples.

The Central Telegraph reported on 3 May 2012:

It would take a person earning $70,000 a year - which is roughly the average salary in Australia - 56,000 years to earn Mr Palmer's net worth.

No, that's not a misprint - 56,000 years.

Conversely, it takes Mr Palmer, the man who plans to bring you Titanic 2, just 70.8 minutes to earn $70,000…..

Ms Rinehart? Well, it takes her just 28.8 minutes to rake in $70,000.

And if you've got a spare 67,857 years you too could earn her net wealth…….

Mr Forrest needs only 20 minutes to make a measly $70k, but the average Australian worker earning the same amount would need 6,057 decades to match his net worth.

Of course the lower your annual salary, the more depressing it gets.

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Gina Rinehart

Photos from the ABC website and Google Images

Australia's Great Divide

Source: The Readers Panel, SMH, 23/10/10