QRC in for the long haul to change coal royalties structure

The fight against super profits coal taxes is not over with the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) saying they will maintain the pressure to reverse the royalties increases announced in the recent budget. State Treasurer Cameron Dick imposed new tiered royalties up to 40 percent on returns of more than $175/tonne in a move that incensed the coal industry. Related: Report counts opportunity cost of coal royalties rise Chief executive officer Ian MacFarlane said the QRC hadn’t let up its opposition, taking every chance to spruik inequity and sovereign risk the royalties increase represents. Persistence would win at the end of the day, Mr MacFarlane said. QRC CEO Ian Macfarlane and Resources Minister Scott Stewart. “There is no justification to it,” he said. “You can't have a situation where you already have the highest royalty rates in Australia and then double them. And that's what this government's done. “The fact that they've got their economic forecast so completely wrong that they've already collected the $800 million they expected to collect extra, this year, they've already collected in six weeks of this financial year. “They will collect by the end of the month the equivalent to their entire projections of extra royalties over four years. And then they've got 10 months to rake the money in. Depending on which economic forecast you use, the lowest is $12 billion. “That's a $5 billion increase on last year. The highest is nearly $8 billion extra. What are they going to do with the money? They can't take that out of the pockets of shareholders that invested self-funded retirees and super funds just because they got their numbers wrong. “So we'll be up there tomorrow, and we'll be up there next week, and next year, and we'll campaign until the royalty rates return to a sensible level.” Long term pain The royalties increase hurt the state’s reputation and damaged investor confidence, Mr Macfarlane said. “If you start the slippery slope to taxing people with a super profits tax when they're making money, then you will destroy investor confidence. “… because that industry, whether it's cattle, and I've been in the slumps, whether it's grain, and I've been in those slumps as well, or whether it's resources, and I've been through those slumps as Minister, they are the good times and the bad times and you need the good times to recover your losses in the bad times. “If the government doesn't realize that, then companies will simply invest somewhere else. They'll go to South America, they'll go to North America, they'll go to Canada, the US. They'll go to South Africa, they'll go to the whole African continent. "They'll look at opportunities in Asia. They don't have to come here. Australia is a difficult country to invest in, but it has in Queensland's case had some stability in its fiscal regime. Now doesn't have that.”

QRC in for the long haul to change coal royalties structure

Industry Queensland

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