I’ve been watching with great interest the recent debate about the correctness of the Resources Super Profits Tax here in Australia. Although I’m by no means knowledgeable about taxation or taxation law, I do think that there are certain conclusions that can be drawn from the course of the debate that illustrate the ideology behind many of the corporate decisions that take place in Australia.
Firstly, though, a little background. Recently, the Federal Government of Australia (at that time, a slightly left of centre labor party) received the findings of the Henry Review. This review looked at Australia’s archaic tax system and made a number of recommendations about improving the system, in the interests of making it more equitable. Some of these recommendations specifically related to replacing the old system of royalty-based mining tax (where all mining companies had to pay a certain fee for using the land and taking minerals from it) with a system that charges a tax once the profits of a mining company exceeds a certain point. It is, to be fair, a tax that is placed upon all the other kinds of taxes, like company tax and so on.

Economists and academics around Australia agreed that this was a way forward for Australia; it made the system fairer and, by not taxing companies until they were making  a profit it would actually encourage investment, rather than hindering it. Here’s a link to an article about that: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Economists-back-RSPT-pd20100526-5SU45?OpenDocument&src=tnb

So far, so good, right? Well, that’s where it all seemed to go wrong. As soon as the tax was announced, the owners of the mining companies immediately used every resource (hah, hah) at their disposal to convince the public that this tax was an outrage, and it would damage the ‘little people’. Basically, you, your job, your house and everything about you was at risk because of this tax. What was particularly interesting was they way that some of the richest people in Australia, like ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, managed to make it look like he and the mining companies were on the side of the average ‘joe’ working hard for a dollar.

Seriously, the whole thing is ridiculous; what isn’t made clear is that this isn’t a new tax at all, but a reform of old ones. In all likelihood, it will make mining in Australia stronger, rather than weaker, and that will provide employment for more Australians. However, what it will do is charge those people who are taking vast sums of money in profits from mining companies more of their earnings. Naturally, this doesn’t make these shareholders happy and thus the stream of invective directed at the Federal Government.

So what is my particular interest in this? Well, I see it as another very clear example of the lack of critical consciousness present amongst the general populace, as well as an example of the ideology of the dominant capitalist hegemony in Australia. Let’s examine the ideology part of this first; one of the principles of ideology requires it to be presented as ‘common sense’. This has been done by the mining companies through their overwhelming use of the media and the tagline ‘If mining’s strong, Australia’s strong.’ However, at no point do they actually explain this tax; instead, they repeat things about people losing jobs and how it will affect all of us. And, here’s the clincher: because they have the power to influence the media, and purchase advertising space, this becomes the message that people hear more often, and therefore come to believe. It’s a short step, then, to adopt it as common sense.

However, if people had learnt to challenge this ideology, and resist the power of the mainstream media; that is, if people were becoming critically conscious, then I believe (and I hope) that this would be a different story; ideally, we might be able to see the vested interests and conflicts that lie behind both the mining companies arguments and the way the media has presented the opposing views to us. Until that point, are we to remain slaves to the capitalist hegemony?