Antinuclear

The age of entitlement is over in Australia — except for the dominant fossil fuel industry and those rich enough to be able to buy political patronage. Deputy editor Sandi Keane reports.

Treasurer Joe Hockey urges all of us to “share the pain” for his confected “budget emergency”, but, sadly, ‘sharing’ isn’t in the fossil fuel industry’s playbook.

Big Carbon has always balked at sharing profits from Australia’s mineral wealth.

In stark contrast to Norway, where a miningtax of 78% has resulted in a sovereign wealth fund twice the size of its GDP, Australia’s effective tax rate for foreign multinational miners is a mere 13%.

Instead, whilst crying poor, the mining industry managed to stump up $22 million for an anti-tax campaign and, in 2010, bring down a prime minister — Kevin Rudd.

This week, Australia’s dominant fossil fuel industry threw down the gauntlet to Hockey’s razor gang after…