In the opinion of Mr. Ken Henry, the Treasury Secretary, the new tax on mining (MRRT) is going to be worse for jobs in the mining sector than the originally planned Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT).
Mr Henry believes the new MRRT is going to make companies that lose money pay royalties, while under the old RSPT the companies would have collected royalties from the government.
Mr Henry has no sympathy for the smaller mining companies who have been protesting that the new law only caters for the larger mining companies. He feels that they had a chance to speak up when the RSPT was offered but did not say anything positive.
Mr. Henry also confirmed that commodity price forecasts had been revised under the new MRRT. The changes were made based on the latest data available as per him. These has not been applied to the old RSPT as it seemed like a waste of time and effort.
He did not comment on a news report which said that the new price forecasts would push up expected revenue in Australia for iron ore by 35.6 % and for coal by 16 %. He merely said that the revisions were quite significant.