Whats beyond comprehension is that Swan was ever given the portfolio of Treasurer - but then it is also beyond comprehension that the likes of Rudd, Gillard, Shorten, Plibersek etc., were ever given the opportunity to ruin this country. #auspol #BSWNBPM #sameoldlabor #springst -FORMER resources minister Martin Ferguson has accused Wayne Swan of misleading and ambushing the mining industry over his proposed mining tax, of betraying Mr Ferguson and of provoking the industry campaign against the former Labor government. “I was misled by Swan,” Mr Ferguson said in an exclusive interview. “The industry was promised full and proper consultations. But Swan had no intention of that. Wayne does not like meetings and argument. He likes to ambush you with the numbers. He is a political apparatchik, not a policy person.” Kevin Rudd also believes he was misled by his treasurer over the resource super-profits tax and says in a further exclusive interview that Mr Swan “told us that they (the miners) would be supportive of the proposal”. Mr Ferguson’s critique of the mining tax saga is contained in Triumph and Demise, a 200,000-word account of the six years of Rudd-Gillard government, including the internal dramas of the Liberal Party, based on more than 60 interviews. Tony Abbott will launch the book, from Melbourne University Press, next Tuesday. In effect, the Ferguson critique destroys the Labor folklore of a brave ALP government being unfairly assaulted by a bunch of multinational corporations. “We lost the mining tax dispute not because of the mining industry’s response but because we created the mess,” Mr Ferguson said. His version is devastating because Mr Ferguson was the link man with the industry. Mr Ferguson verifies the claim made by Minerals Council of Australia head Mitch Hooke: “This was an ambush. It was an act of betrayal in terms of the assurances we were given.” Mr Ferguson revealed that at an early 2010 meeting with Mr Swan, the then treasurer asked him to give specific assurances to the major miners that in developing the profits-based mining tax the government was promising “full and proper consultation”. Accusing Mr Swan of breaking this pledge and exploiting his credibility with the industry, Mr Ferguson said that, when he finally saw the policy, his immediate reaction was: “It won’t work. I felt like resigning, especially when I got the companies in and saw their reaction. It was one of disbelief.” The mining tax chapter includes extraordinary mutual recriminations involving Mr Swan and Mr Rudd, repeated claims by many industry figures that Mr Swan misled them and a remark by former Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Terry Moran that the mining tax was “one of the biggest own goals I’ve seen”. Interviewed at length, Mr Swan fiercely rejected the claims of his critics: Mr Ferguson, Mr Rudd and the miners. The mining tax was critical to Mr Rudd’s removal as prime minister in June 2010 and in destroying the Rudd-Swan relationship. Mr Ferguson is incensed at Mr Swan’s claim to the author, repeated in his just-released book, that Mr Swan’s April 29, 2010, briefings on the tax showed his obligation to consult the miners was honoured. This briefing was three days before the May 2 unveiling of the mining tax. Asked about Mr Swan’s claim, Mr Ferguson was contemptuous. “This is rubbish,” he said. “He met them once. That’s not consultation. It’s not what I was led to believe would occur.” Mr Swan, in fact, presented a fait accompli. Mr Ferguson explained the full story, starting with his early 2010 meeting with Mr Swan. “I had discussions at the most senior levels with BHP, Rio and Xstrata, and also the Minerals Council,” he said. “I said ‘this will be the agreement: you give the government time to think this through and nothing will occur without full and proper consultation’. I reported back to the treasurer within a couple of weeks that I had secured the total agreement of the industry on that basis.” The upshot is that between February and May 2010, the industry largely kept quiet. “It is possibly true that Martin told the mining companies stuff he shouldn’t have,” Mr Swan said. Mr Ferguson was excluded from the policy decisions — a serious blunder. “Kevin had banned him,” Mr Swan said. Mr Ferguson said: “Kevin denies this. I’ve challenged him on it.” Explaining the tax, Mr Rudd said: “I was not running it or any other tax. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind: the carriage lay with the treasurer.” Mr Rudd said Mr Swan told him that “without it his credentials as a reforming treasurer would have been shot to pieces”. Then treasury secretary Ken Henry, upon whose report the mining tax was based, said: “They thought the resources tax was a deadset political winner for them.” Mr Hooke has a graphic recall of the pre-announcement briefing: “I remember saying to Martin ‘Well, this flies in the face of all the assurances we have been given. You have put a 40 per cent tax rate on the table’. He was very diplomatic.” He added: “They (Labor) wanted a fight and it looks like they are going to get it.” Mr Ferguson was appalled by the scale of Labor’s blunder. “The industry would have accepted a profits-based tax,” he said. “That was their submission to us. They were ready to work with us. My view is if you engage in an open and honest way then you always come out better.” He was shocked by the design of Mr Swan’s initial tax, under which the government would take a 40 per cent project share, calling it “a textbook proposal you would apply to an immature industry such as Nigeria or Mozambique”. Mr Rudd lays a lethal charge against Mr Swan: “The miners had been told in briefings by the treasurer that the policy would be announced but it would not contain numbers in it for the forward estimates. Martin Ferguson will confirm this version of events.” Mr Ferguson did confirm this to the author. This issue became legendary within the industry. Rio Tinto managing director David Peever said: “We were assured by both Wayne Swan and his chief of staff that whatever tax policy was settled upon, it would not be in the budget’s forward estimates. I left the meeting reassured on that vital point. It meant there would still be time after the tax announcement and the budget to work through the proposed policy because the numbers were not settled upon.” Mr Peever was shocked when he found this was not the case. Mr Ferguson nailed Mr Swan and reported back to Mr Rudd. “Peever had asked the question and the treasurer said ‘no’,” Mr Ferguson said. “The company executives believed he misled them.” This claim — by Mr Rudd, Mr Ferguson and Mr Peever — has enraged Mr Swan. He told the author: “It is absolute nonsense I said to anyone the revenue numbers wouldn’t be in the budget. That’s beyond comprehension.” Mr Rudd, interviewed for this book and believing his fate as prime minister was affected by these events, pursued this conflict between himself and Mr Swan. Mr Rudd said: “Either there was a profound miscommunication between the treasurer and the miners — profound — on whether numbers would be attached or not, or we were misled. I am not in a position to judge which of these is the case.” It is, however, obvious who Mr Rudd blames. Mr Swan said Mr Rudd’s office was fully informed about negotiations on the tax. He said many memos testified to this. It included direct conversations between Mr Rudd and Mr Swan. The former treasurer rejects outright any suggestion that Mr Rudd was misled or kept in the dark. ALP national secretary Karl Bitar said of the mining tax: “As campaign director I was told nothing beforehand.” Yet he was running the re-election campaign. Labor pretended it wanted to fight the industry but it had no plans for the fight that occurred. theaustralian.au/national-affairs/treasury/wayne-swan-misled-industry-with-mining-tax-ambush-says-martin-ferguson/story-fn59nsif-1227031334353
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 01:33:19 +0000
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