Frank Macskasy 4.1.4
Rusty, I think you’re being somewhat optimistic about New Zealand reaping incredible rewards from mining.
For one thing, minerals are mostly exported. As you know, exported goods are zero-rated for gst purposes. Hence no tax in that area.
Next, government receives only 1% to 2% in royalties from mining. Not very much and if we tried increasing it, like our Aussie cuzzies did, a couple of years ago – mining companies would come down on us like a tonne of… [insert mineral here].
On top of that, the mining industry employs only a fraction of the people that tourism does. Even if we doubled mining in this country, we wouldn’t have the skilled workforce to operate any expansion. We’d have to bring workers in from offshore. It’s not hard to understand why – mining is a highly specialised profession and you can’t just dump a few thousand unemployed ex-NiWA staff or railway workers from Dunedin down a mineshaft.
Our top industries – tourism and food production – have far more potential and are re-newable/sustainable. Especially as the world’s population soars from the current 7 billion to 9 billion in 2050. That is when we will earn incredible wealth by selling food to the planet’s population.
(If we haven’t been stupid in the meantime and sold our farms to China, the Americans, or Nestle in the meantime… )
