Great Artesian Basin Protection Group

The Australia Institute has released a new research paper, Pouring more fuel on the fire.

The paper updates previous Australia Institute research detailing federal government subsidies to the mining industry.

It finds that the federal government has increased taxpayer funded subsidies to the mining industry by 12.5% over the past year, amounting to an increase of half a billion dollars.

This type of industry assistance is usually used to help industries when they are financially vulnerable or establishing themselves. This is clearly not the case for the largely foreign owned (83 per cent) mining industry, who made $84 billion in pre-tax profits last year.

Subsidies the mining industry receives include:

· $2.35 billion in fuel subsidies (increased $458 million)
· $495 million in tax write-offs for capital works (increased $127.5 million)
· $550 million in deductions for exploration and prospecting (increased $220 million)

An additional $219 million was also given to the mining industry as part of the coal sector jobs package.

Click here download the research paper as a PDF.

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