What's in store for Australian mining with the fall of the House of Rudd?

A precarious peace pact has been struck between the Australian mining lobbies and the Federal Government following the sudden departure of Kevin Rudd as Australian Labor Party Leader and thus the Prime Ministership.

PERTH - 

The advent of Julia Gillard as Australia's first female Prime Minister will see a review of political issues and one of the most contentious issues that saw the Government under Rudd getting into electoral trouble - the resource super profit tax (RSPT) - will now be up for discussion.

Gillard told the Canberra media gallery today that she would bring to an immediate halt to the Rudd-inspired expensive advertising campaign to promote the case for a 40% super tax on miners, and she hoped the mining lobbies would follow suit so there could be meaningful talks.

Both the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) and the Association of Mining & Exploration Companies (AMEC) have announced they will halt their advertising campaigns to allow the open talks they have looking for to flourish.

AMEC's chief executive Simon Bennison told Mineweb his organisation would need to know there are going to be sensible terms for negotiations and that Canberra would need to explain just how it was going to handle its Budget blow-out, otherwise the whole issue was back to square one.

While there was clearly some relief for the minerals sector from today's surprise abdication by Rudd, on the belief that there would be a less autocratic rule, the fact that Treasurer Wayne Swan is now Deputy Prime Minister won't warm the cockles of many miners' hearts.

Several months ago Swan trumpeted that he saw the RSPT as a just way of looking after Australia and in the process - with Rudd's support - created devastation on the share market which diminished the value of family superannuation portfolios and has seen major projects stalled.

What has dismayed miners and stockbrokers is that Wayne Swan has shown on financial matters he is a few bricks short of a wall.

The demise of Kevin Rudd has been a cardiac arrest graph - he was swept to power in 2007 with perhaps the highest personal popularity rating but in the past year he has been shown to have over-promised and under-delivered. He was one of the few Prime Ministers not to complete a single term.

He also breached undertakings including that he would end naked political advertising campaigns by government which he swept under the table in deciding to take on the miners on the RSPT.

Some senior government officials and party members were candid today in saying if they had not done something about Rudd then the coming election would have been a disaster.  They had private figures that showed a greater regression for Labor than the public polls were showing.

At the height of his power Rudd had said he would be quelling all the faction fighting within the Labor Party to achieve good government. But the party factions ended his rule when the numbers game began in Canberra yesterday.

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RUDD now I know there is a GOD thank you by blackjack on June 24 2010, 05:34 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Same Horse/drifferent rider maybe? Around early 2006 the left wing media had painted this now ex-Pm's mantra as the true road prepetual prosperity,and what joke our main stream media really are!!! This PM has spent all our surplus by mid 2009,..yes the only time a socailist . .more quits spending when he's ran outer the people's money,yes it's been all fretted away on non-export sector=more votes? Then the egotastical Rudd cries on National TV,.what joke. . .less by billyg on June 24 2010, 17:47 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

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