Via the ABC:
Military strategists call it an enemy’s centre of gravity.
It is an opponent’s critical strength or vulnerability which, if destroyed, eliminates the threat posed by the foe.
In the mining industry’s war on Brendon Gryll’s mining tax, the powerful mining lobby appears to have determined the centre of gravity is not the tax, but Mr Grylls himself.
“Grylls is linked personally to the mining tax. It’s his big idea … so if they can try to undermine him, they help undermine his idea,” Notre Dame University political analyst Martin Drum said.
The Grylls idea is simple. Take a 25 cent per tonne production rental fee on iron ore set for BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in the 1960s, and increase it to $5 a tonne, raising $7.2 billion over the next four years.
But the change requires the agreement of the big miners and they flatly rejected it from the outset, and have been attacking the tax and its author ever since.
It has left Mr Grylls fighting a two-front war: one to push through his new tax, and the other to save his seat.
“There’s two things happening in Pilbara. I think there is some disenchantment over the proposed mining tax. And there is also a really concerted campaign from the mining companies to further discredit Brendon Grylls,” Dr Drum said.
This week, the relentless and well-funded campaign against the WA Nationals’ plan focused on the futility of introducing a tax where the proceeds would be progressively redistributed to other states through revised GST revenue allocations.
Released by the Minerals Council of Australia, the modelling argued the tax was all pain and no gain for WA, risking investment, jobs and the state’s reputation for little long-term benefit.
It’s the latest salvo in the mining lobby’s so-called “information campaign”, spearheaded by WA’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy, which has bankrolled multi-media advertisements warning of the dire risk to investment and jobs.
It has been backed up by the national support of the Minerals Council, which has forcefully argued the damaging impact of the tax on a resources-dependent state.
Mr Grylls anticipated the backlash and expected a fight. He was typically pugnacious in response to the latest claims about the impact of his tax.
“The Chamber of Minerals and Energy is the enemy of the West Australian economy. We will continue to point that out day after day,” he said.
“I am very confident in the campaign that the West Australian Nationals are running.
“Our support is fantastic across the length and breadth of the state and we look forward to putting all this to the test in March.”
If polling commissioned as part of the Chamber’s anti-mining tax campaign proves accurate, Mr Grylls will face a severe electoral test at the March state election.
A poll conducted in early November showed a 20 point slide in his primary vote, with the Liberals poised to win the seat on preferences.
Dr Drum believes Mr Grylls may well struggle to hold his electorate.
“He has a healthy margin (11.5 per cent) but I think the margin is a bit soft because the Nationals had never done as well in the seat of Pilbara as they did last time around,” he said.
Dr Drum said voters had been attracted to the National’s Royalties for Regions program, and what it delivered to the region.
“This time around, its an eight-and-a-half-year government that he’s been a part of, some difficult financial conditions, a really concerted campaign being run against him with a lot of money behind it, this makes his job much harder,” Dr Drum said.
Mr Grylls is playing a long game, hoping to secure a new revenue source to balance the WA’s state budget, and then use tax that as leverage to then mount a federal campaign to change the GST distribution to WA.
But it all hinges on him retaining the seat of Pilbara, a fact both he and the mining lobby know only too well.
Too right, Brendan. You’re my hero.
