Taxes a drag on coal, Kloppers warns investors

BHP Billiton head Marius Kloppers has told European investors that Australia's carbon and mining taxes have helped to render the nation's coal industry unworthy of further investment at this time, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Despite reassuring Australians that the taxes were not to blame for BHP's mothballing of the $US30 billion Olympic Dam expansion, Kloppers referred to both when telling British media that new investments in Australia's coal sector would not be profitable.

Boom has longer to run, say miners

Industry leaders have rejected Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s assertion that the resources boom has ended and called on the government to ensure Australia works hard to keep encouraging investment as the boom steps down a gear, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Ferguson sparked a debate yesterday when he said “the boom is over”, adding that Australia should be pleased it had attracted $270 billion of investment during its course.

Resources chiefs were confident that Chinese demand for commodities will grow in the longer term, despite a slowdown that has seen iron ore and coking coal prices fall to four-year lows.

Budget's $10B hit from coal, iron ore slump

Plunging iron ore and coal prices will lower the government's tax revenue as much as $10 billion this year, destroying its promised budget surplus in the absence of a fresh round of spending cuts, according to The Australian.

The commodity price falls since the budget have been much greater than Treasury forecast and will further cut receipts from mining and company taxes.