Bhp
As the Senate debates the Mining Resources Rent Tax legislation it occurred to me that, for all the political posturing and economic ‘forecasts’ amid significant uncertainty and complexity, there is another way forward.
At the Adelaide Festival of Ideas forum, ‘Resource Rich or Dirt Poor’, held in Adelaide late last year about the proceeds from the mining boom. I asked, “If BHP and Rio Tinto together endowed Universities in Australia with $10 billion by 2015, a) Why would they? And b) What would be the implications”?
Fanciful? Naïve? …Or not? The immediate response from the panel was a cynical, “Well, yes, why would they”? And if they were to make such a donation it would have to be put through a ‘cleansing’ institution, a Government agency to ensure that the funds were put to appropriate use.
Continue reading "Instead of sandstone unis, what about iron ore ones?" »
Going on strike for a week is a big call. It’s never a decision workers take lightly and it happens rarely.
But this week, over 3,500 coal mine workers from seven central Queensland mines operated by BHP have made that call.
The week-long strike comes after many months of smaller stoppages. But when you’re negotiating with one of the richest companies in the world, it takes something dramatic to get their attention.
Continue reading "We’re striking a blow against BHP greed" »
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Sly grog says:
Flying in overseas workers is not a good solution. Think about the economic consequences of such a statement. Unions are pushing the envelope knowing full well federal election time will bring them back to earth. However more money for Australian workers is good for Australian economy, hence a mining tax.… Read more »
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Cate says:
Why is there a determination ferom the bleeding whinging Gillard Government and followers that we must cut the legs of companies that put Australia on the Global map. You are all ingrates. Whilst our big greedy??? ( I don’t think so) companies remain in Australia and their profits remain in… Read more »
It’s just as well Margaret Olley didn’t work for BHP Billiton.
Apart from the fact that her artistic skills wouldn’t have been much use in the whole global mining caper, there’s the small – and extremely messy – matter of her work station.
Since Olley’s death late last month, much has been made of the cluttered and chaotic Sydney terrace in which she lived and painted.
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Humphrey B Bear says:
Margaret Olley’s bright ,positive, optimistic and artistic paintings of Australia hang in many lounge rooms in Australia ! Tony Abbott’s dark,negative, pessimistic, and depressive paintings of Australia hang in many toilets in Australia ! Read more »
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humphrey b bear says:
unlike tony abbott, margaret olley at least painted bright, optimistic, positive uplifting, economic, scientific and artistic pictures of Australia! Read more »
By now you may be aware of the offensively Draconian nanny state mandate handed down this week to the fine employees of BHP Billiton.
The memo entitled, Mine Kampf: BHP’s Office Environment Standard And Glorious Five Year Plan, outlines a thousand and one workplace bugbears that the BHP politburo have declared no longer negotiable, punishable presumably, by pain of performance review.
It’s a grossly heavy-handed document, undermining the worth of the employees who deserve respect not only for making BHP the success story it is, but also just for being humble and honourable members of the human race. And it would be an indefensibly deplorable document of foolscap fascism, if it were not for one tiny problem: as a rule, you people are f#$king disgusting.
Continue reading "A dangerously unhinged lesson in office etiquette" »
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pikavippi says:
Exactly laqr,I think I¡Çm smarter than Obama too. and to prove it, I¡Çll put my college GPA and transcripts up against his any day. Read more »
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Lilly says:
Agreed! People who leave mobile phones on their desk then leave forcing the rest of us to hear their crap over and over should be sacked on the spot! Read more »
It’s a management case study that will live on in textbooks for decades.
Just weeks after banning employees from leaving post-it notes on computers or eating lunch with strong odours, resources giant BHP has announced a whopping great profit of $A22.5 billion, up 85.9 per cent.
Of course it wasn’t only the absence of messy post-it notes that pushed profits into the stratosphere. There was also the company’s nation-wide crackdown on jackets slung over the backs of chairs. Oh, and record prices for Australian coal, iron ore and gas.
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Max, of Rocky says:
Yeah right, you are forgetting something here, BHP has paid ROYALTIES to state governments from day # 1. They pay royalties on everything they sell, to each state, before a profit is made on their investments. They pay royalties when they do not make a profit. See link below http://www.queenslandeconomy.com.au/taxes-royalties-generated-by-resources… Read more »
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Tony P Grant says:
There is a long list of “neo-con’ apologists on this blog but that’s what you have and we know where they have always been coming from…trillion $ rescue packages globally etc The tax they pay? The tax they (Billiton/BHP) actually pay is post costs, they aren’t the old PAYG tax… Read more »
We’ve had factional thugs and faceless men, dishonourable rats and bloodsuckers, slap-downs and sabre-rattling – union officials have hit the front pages over the past week in all their rhetorical glory.
We’ve even declared war on shiny arses, although I have to admit I’m still not entirely sure what a war on shiny arses is.
But the most startling thing to me is that these exchanges have made front-page news. A bit of argy-bargy between union leaders, politicians and bosses is fairly standard practice in Australia. And some colourful language in the mix is nothing new. It’s called open, democratic society.
Continue reading "You call ‘em thugs, I call ‘em foot soldiers of democracy" »
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Sean Ambrose says:
If I were running this country, the likes of Clive Palmer would be incarcerated in a Zoo where they would be on display as an exotic exhibit and entertainment value for ordinary working Australians. No doubt the interest from such attraction would generate more in terms of revenue collected from… Read more »
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Tony says:
@Michael N “I’ll stick to my individual contract and I’ll leave the lower union wages to the mediocrity.” Why do employers offer invididual contracts? Because it puts them in a stronger bargaining position. The more individual contracts out there the stronger the employers position. If everyone was on an individual… Read more »
Last year BHP helped prove that crying wolf works, provided you crank the volume up to 11. Along with the other mining giants, they managed to convince Australians that paying anywhere near a fair amount of tax would somehow cripple their companies – and the nation.
We know now how the scare campaign played out: a Prime Minister was rolled, a new one installed and the Resources Super Profit Tax became the Mineral Resources Rent Tax.
Within 24 hours this week, in what can only be attributed to a divine act of timing, Australians have discovered how much mining wealth the nation lost and how quickly it’s made by those who squealed so loudly. Yesterday, BHP Billiton announced half-year net profits had surged 72 per cent – to $10.6 billion dollars.
Continue reading "$10.6 billion profit leaves plenty to go round" »
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dogfather says:
A few short years wil be between 15 and 30 years. Do you dare to dispute this? Hpoefully Australia and Planet Earth will last a helluva lot longer thaI Reserves are finite or were you thinking of burrowing into the earth’s crust? Read more »
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Pikey says:
Your well right Democrat. Don’t anybody be fooled that in making so much money BHPB is doing it in an efficient and effective manner. The large mining companies waste money like its going out of fashion. If the equivalent management team and structure for BHPB was to run say a… Read more »
Spare us the whingeing woman. Julia Gillard whinges that an Opposition member elected as an endorsed Coalition member won’t defect to the ALP to help her out.
She’ll “honour parliamentary reform” she says but she won’t honour her election promise to the Australian people that “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead”.
“Be a realist – circumstances have changed” chanted Gillard on Sunday morning TV. How we might ask?
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Georgia says:
Bring back Kevin Rudd or (even better) John Howard (although he retired,sad) The Prime Ministers are getting worse and worse and worse. What will we get next, a chicken ( higher political knowledge than Julia anyways) Read more »
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Christian Real says:
DaveinPerth Malcolm at least had much more credibility and integrity, something that Tony Abbott can only dream about.. It seems that Malcolm would not have welched or reneged on a signed agreement like Tony Abbott did either. Read more »
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