Haggarty takes shot at carbon tax

The head of Australia's largest coal company has denounced Australia's carbon tax as ''pointless'' and said he is sceptical about human efforts to control climate change, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Whitehaven Coal chief executive Tony Haggarty, who this month sealed a $5.1 billion merger between Whitehaven and Nathan Tinkler's Aston Resources, said he did not accept the climate science as ''having proved anything''.

''I don't say that it's wrong, but it's the height of human arrogance to think that we understand climate and … to think we can control it, I think that's utterly ridiculous,” he said.

BHP to focus on shareholder returns

BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers has declared the resources giant will champion a “conservative” approach to capital management and investment opportunities as pressure from shareholders mounts for it to return more cash and drop ambitious spending plans, The Australian Financial Review reports.

“We are not in the commodities business, we are in the shareholder return business,” he said.

His comments are a clear signal to the market that the miner will not dedicate capital to projects with marginal returns. The BHP board, which met in Melbourne last week, must decide whether to proceed with three projects with a combined capital cost of more than $50 billion in the second half of this year.

Mine tax revenue remains a mystery for another year

Treasurer Wayne Swan will not have an accurate idea about first-year revenue from the mining tax until July next year, amid growing doubts about whether the tax – used to fund family benefits outlined in the budget – will hit the forecasts the government is banking on, The Australian reports.

Swan last week again downgraded expected revenue from the mineral resources rent tax from $10.6 billion to $9.7 billion over the first three years but analysts say even the latest forecast is questionable.

Liberals want tighter compliance rules for mine developers

Resource companies would be subjected to more rigorous public reporting of their compliance with environmental standards as part of the Coalition's one-stop model for approvals, The Australian reports.

The requirements would be part of agreements negotiated with the states to facilitate the one-stop model, which involves the federal government ending duplication by handing over responsibility for environmental approvals to state governments.