By Phillip Coorey
THE mining tycoon Andrew Forrest got no joy from the Greens yesterday when he tried to persuade Bob Brown to reconsider his party's support for the Rudd government's resources super-profits tax.
Armed with an assessment that said the tax would ruin the minerals industry, Mr Forrest, the chief executive of Fortescue Metals Group, also addressed a meeting of Coalition MPs and senators where he received a more sympathetic hearing.
Mr Forrest is one of the most vocal industry critics of the government's proposed 40 per cent tax. On Monday he declared it ''officially dead''.
However, if the Rudd government wins the coming election and the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate, the planned tax would be implemented in full.
Senator Brown said Mr Forrest was surprised the Greens had committed to supporting the tax without hearing all the arguments first. The Greens support a 50 per cent super-profits tax and want some of the proceeds of Labor's tax put into a sovereign wealth fund.
Senator Brown told Mr Forrest yesterday the Greens would support Labor's proposal.
''We explained that we are a social justice party as well as an environmental party,'' he said. ''The country's wealth needs to be shared.''
Mr Forrest's address to the Coalition party room was arranged by the Western Australian Liberal MP Barry Haase.
There is little hope within government ranks of soothing the concerns of minerals giants such as Fortescue, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto or Xstrata, which oppose the tax being imposed on existing projects and say it should be different for different commodities.
They have dismissed a mooted compromise in which the rate would be lifted from 6 per cent to 11 per cent and taxpayer-funded writeoffs for failed ventures would be scrapped. These changes would make the tax resemble the existing petroleum rent and resource tax on offshore gas and oil projects.
A special cabinet meeting last night fuelled speculation that the government was on the verge of an agreement with the coal-seam gas sector and that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, could announce details before he leaves on Friday for Canada for the G20 leaders meeting.
Canada is a minerals competitor. In yesterday's Financial Times, Gordon Peeling, head of the Mining Association of Canada, was reported as saying the tax ''probably makes Kevin Rudd the mining man of the year in Canada, because he'll bring a lot of investment our way''.
Estimates released by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecast a surge in prices for coal and iron ore next financial year. It predicted a $202 billion increase in commodity exports, an increase of 23 per cent in a year, and more than 8 per cent higher than the estimates in March.
Mr Rudd told caucus that unemployment would have hit 15 per cent had other businesses shed jobs like the miners during the global downturn.