Proceeds of mineral wealth should be distributed throughout the country

摘要

The current system of state-based royalties, grounded in 19th Century notions of revenue and taxation theory, is ill suited to a modern nation. Despite last year's ugly brawl between big miners and the government - the former predictably selling the small explorers and miners out when they did a deal with Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard - the issue of taxation reform in this important sector of Australian economic life has not gone away.