Supporting Our Communities
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® CFMEU Mining and Energy COMMONCAUSE Strong Union. Safer Workplace. www.cfmeu.com.au www.ourjobs.org.au VOL 81 NO. 2 APRIL/MAY 2015 Supporting our REGISTERED BY AUSTRALIA POST PP 243184/00025 communities BHP and Rio Union sparks North among tax community Delegates AGM dodgers robbing fightback against charts way Australia of compulsory FIFO ahead in vital billions challenges 1 COMMON CAUSE VOL 77 NO. 2 JUNE/JULY 2011 Inside How loud is too loud? Unless you measure, you don’t know! Facts • Industrial deafness is 100% preventable. • PPE wear time is critical. Removal, even for a short time, can exceed daily dose limits (85 dBA within an eight hour period). • A one off, peak noise event above 140 dBC (the equivalent of hitting steel plate with a hammer) can cause instant and permanent damage. CMTS can monitor noise at the same time as conducting statutory dust monitoring. Call for more information and your free booklet. Lithgow Newcastle Singleton Woonona T: +61 (2) 6350 1050 T: +61 (2) 4922 4461 T: +61 (2) 6571 9924 T: +61 (2) 4286 5424 F: +61 (2) 6351 2407 F: +61 (2) 4958 8932 F: +61 (2) 6572 2667 F: +61 (2) 4285 4144 3 Proto Avenue 533 Lake Road 1 Civic Avenue 558-580 Princes Highway Lithgow NSW 2790 Argenton NSW 2284 Singleton NSW 2330 Woonona NSW 2517 www.coalservices.com.au 2014 Issue 06 - Noise v5.indd 1 17/04/2015 10:04:34 AM General President Tony Maher Reports BHP, Rio and corporate giants robbing Australia of billions in tax scams hile our members and our refused to provide any information apparently travelling from Australia families pay their fair share until threatened by the Senate for to Singapore to Ireland to the Win taxes to keep Australia probable contempt. It took a couple Netherlands, then back to Ireland going, the most powerful mining more weeks for BHP to reveal the again, before ending up in Bermuda companies and other corporate scandalous dimension of its tax where corporation tax is zero giants are effectively robbing rip-offs. per cent. our country of billions of dollars It is no coincidence that both Microsoft told the Inquiry its in revenue every year through a BHP and Rio were to the fore in Australian revenue for last year number of disgraceful tax dodges. bankrolling the public relations amounted to $2 billion. Just 5% of Take BHP for instance. It has just campaign that sank Kevin Rudd’s that – $100 million – was counted been forced to admit to a scheme proposed resources super-profits as “consulting services” and that saw it pay effectively no tax tax and drove the final nail into billed to the Australian books, How loud is too loud? on billions of dollars in sales from his first term prime ministership. generating $30 million in tax. The its resources in Australia that it No matter how many billions they remaining $1.9 billion was ‘taxed’ channels through its ‘marketing make, neither BHP, Rio nor the other in Singapore. Unless you measure, you don’t know! hub’ in a deal with Singapore. global mining giants seem to have This incredible tax rip-off is Between 2006 and 2014 much of an appetite for paying happening at a time when our Facts BHP booked profits of $US5.7 their fair share of tax. Federal Government is looking to billion in Singapore and paid just The Senate Inquiry has also slash funding our health, education • Industrial deafness is 100% preventable. $US121,000 in tax there. That is just uncovered some pretty disgusting and other vital community services • PPE wear time is critical. Removal, even for a short time, can exceed daily dose limits (85 $US15,000 a year and represents a stuff with US tech giants Google, because of a revenue shortfall. tax rate of 0.002%. Microsoft and Apple using The Abbott Government is also dBA within an eight hour period). Through its Singapore Australia’s archaic corporate tax promoting a case to increase the • A one off, peak noise event above 140 dBC (the equivalent of hitting steel plate with a ‘marketing hub’, BHP ‘buys’ laws to join in the massive rip-off GST and further hit ordinary and hammer) can cause instant and permanent damage. Australian resources from its at our expense. disadvantaged Australians. Australian arm and resells them at They have all admitted they While our taxation system may a higher price to China and other syphoned revenue to low tax indeed be archaic and riddled with Asian customers. The profits from jurisdictions such as Singapore, holes big enough to drive these CMTS can monitor noise at this are booked in Singapore where Ireland and Bermuda, and paid corporate tax scams through, it they are then virtually tax-free. minuscule amounts of tax in is time all our politicians acted the same time as conducting Rio Tinto operate the same Australia. together to end this scandalous scam but not on the same scale. Every time you click on an corporate rip-off. Labor is statutory dust monitoring. It’s Australia chief executive Phil advertisement on Google or committed to acting on this. As for Edmands admitted that Rio’s Microsoft websites, the revenue the Abbott Government, it needs Singapore ‘marketing hub’ earned generated goes directly to to stand up to its rich and powerful $US719 million last year and only Singapore, where it is taxed at the bludging mates in the big end of Call for more information and paid $US44 million in tax – a rate of very low rate of 17%. Billions of town. just 6%. dollars are earned from consumers If we are to preserve a decent your free booklet. These scams only came to light in Australia, and yet the deep- way of life and standard of living because the Australian Parliament pocketed tech giants don’t pay a for all Australians then the BHPs, has set up a Senate Inquiry into tax cent of tax here. Rios and every other corporation Lithgow Newcastle Singleton Woonona dodging. When Rio fronted at least Google Australia managing making fortunes in this country will T: +61 (2) 6350 1050 T: +61 (2) 4922 4461 T: +61 (2) 6571 9924 T: +61 (2) 4286 5424 it was upfront in revealing its quite director Maile Carnegie have to be forced to pay their fair F: +61 (2) 6351 2407 F: +61 (2) 4958 8932 F: +61 (2) 6572 2667 F: +61 (2) 4285 4144 legal but morally reprehensible revealed a confusing web of tax share. 3 Proto Avenue 533 Lake Road 1 Civic Avenue 558-580 Princes Highway tax scam. BHP stonewalled and “minimisation” seeing revenue (See story page 12-13) Lithgow NSW 2790 Argenton NSW 2284 Singleton NSW 2330 Woonona NSW 2517 www.coalservices.com.au VOL 81 NO.2 APRIL/MAY 2015 COMMON CAUSE 3 2014 Issue 06 - Noise v5.indd 1 17/04/2015 10:04:34 AM General Secretary Andrew Vickers Reports Bosses turning mine safety into farce: While workers killed and injured, employers ban Union safety stickers! ince the last issue of Common And our Check Inspectors have used to issue their employees with their Cause, we have suffered warned that “the over-riding and own safety stickers. Simple and smart – Sanother coal mine fatality disregarding of alarms must stop”. but not any more. in Queensland, this time at BHP’s This is a deadly serious issue. It was Incredible as it may seem, the big Blackwater open cut in Central a key factor in the last major disaster powerful coal operators who dominate Queensland. Laurie Donovan was on the Queensland coalfields when 11 Queensland coal have warned the Union killed in a vehicle roll over that injured mineworkers were killed in BHP’s Moura against issuing safety stickers and several other workers travelling in No.2 mine in 1994. The Inquiry into the indeed banning them from work sites. it during a shift changeover on 12 Disaster was told that alarms were over- And that says it all really. With coal March. It was the second fatality at ridden before the men were sent down miners being killed and injured on the Central Queensland’s coal mines to their deaths that fatal shift because job the bosses response is to ban Union already this year and the fourth in management was on a big production safety stickers. It is turning tragedy into 11-months. Laurie leaves behind two push and was concerned that if the men farce. They ought to be ashamed of children and two grandchildren. heard the alarms going off, they would themselves. While Queensland District President not have gone down the mine! Our Union will continue to promote Stephen Smyth has called on BHP to Over-riding alarms was also a major safety awareness on the job. We be more open and transparent in the factor in the more recent international will continue to fight this culture of investigation into the circumstances coal disasters at Turkey’s Soma mine bullying and harassment and we will of Laurie Donovan’s death, the District where 300 were killed and at New do everything in our power to ensure Check Inspectors have issued a major Zealand’s Pike River where 29 died. that our safety laws and regulations safety alert to all mineworkers following Our Union is not prepared to stand are fully complied with. Unlike the coal the spate of recent deaths and the idly by and wait for another Moura No.2, companies who are only interested in numerous serious incidents that have Soma or Pike River to shake coal mine production and profits, for the Union occurred in the past 12-months, could operators out of their growing contempt and our members, safety is a matter of easily have resulted in further tragedy.