How Australia funds its future. A single levy on gross commodity revenue, no profit shifting, five automatic zones. The mechanism that builds the SBC, lowers income tax to 20% over a decade, and gives Traditional Owners a constitutional guarantee.
Australia had the largest mining boom in history and emerged with $600 billion in federal debt. The PRRT collected almost nothing from LNG. Royalties are fixed regardless of price. Windfall pricing during the supercycle was captured by shareholders, not Australians.
The multinational pays a profit tax engineered to zero. The Pilbara miner pays full income tax on every dollar. Unions are pushing back. Strike risk is rising. The deal has never been fair — and the people who do the work know it.
Labor is talking about taxing gas harder. The Greens want windfall taxes. Somebody is going to redesign Australian resource taxation. The question is whether it will be done fairly — with a coherent design — or whether it will be a series of opportunistic grabs that drive investment offshore without solving the problem.
Not a tax grab. A deal. Cheap power to the mine gate, sovereign water, fast approvals, 20-year locked rates. In return: one rate on gross revenue, two minutes to calculate. The miner gets certainty. The worker gets tax cuts. The state keeps what it earns. The Traditional Owner gets a constitutional guarantee. The nation gets the infrastructure it never built.
Gross revenue levy — no profit shifting, no gaming. Five automatic zones based on quarterly price vs 10-year rolling average: Crisis 30% · Low 40% · Normal 45% · High 60% · Supercycle 80%. REL = Gross Revenue × Zone Rate. Due 30 days. No negotiation. Replaces PRRT and company extraction tax entirely.
REL funds the SBC surplus that triggers automatic income tax cuts — 30% → 27% → 24% → 20% over 10 years on legislated debt-milestone triggers. Not calendar promises. When the debt falls, the rate falls. The Pilbara miner, the coal worker, the mine engineer: tax bill falls every year for a decade. Funded by the ground, not by them.
SBC corridor power delivered at 6c/kWh to every mine gate. Today's industrial power is closer to 15c. The cost reduction more than compensates the miner for the gross-revenue levy. The deal works because the infrastructure works.
Alice Hub water and SBC corridor water available to mining operations along the corridors. Reliable, sovereign, priced fairly. Water security is a precondition of mining — and Australia has the natural endowment to provide it from the monsoon north.
73% to the Federation (funding the SBC, debt reduction, income tax cuts, sovereign wealth fund). 25% to the states (royalties retained, lump sum compensation for any gross-revenue overlap, infrastructure share). 2% to Traditional Owners (constitutionally guaranteed Traditional Owner Services Fund). Distribution is automatic. No annual negotiation. No political risk.
Federal mine approvals legislated to 6 months maximum. Environmental review, native title clearance, financial assurance — all parallel, not sequential. State approvals timed to federal timeline. Approvals do not become an extraction tax by another means.
Australia produces 320 tonnes of gold per year and holds 80 tonnes in sovereign reserve. MMP increases the sovereign holding annually from domestic production. Gold in the vault is the floor under the currency in any future crisis.
REL revenue net of debt service and SBC capital flows to a constitutionally-protected Sovereign Wealth Fund. Modelled on Norway's. Invested abroad, never spent, returns funding future generations. The mining boom built no Australian institution. The REL builds one for every Australian born from 2027.
| Current — Failing | MMP — The Deal |
|---|---|
| PRRT collects almost nothing from LNG. Profit engineering legal. | REL on gross revenue. No profit shifting. Zone rate × gross = levy. 30 days. |
| Royalties fixed regardless of price. Windfall capture lost. | Five automatic price zones. Levy rises with the supercycle, falls in crisis. |
| Mine approvals: 5–10 years. | Mine approvals: 6 months legislated. Environmental + native title in parallel. |
| Multinational pays zero. Pilbara worker pays 32%. | Multinational pays REL. Worker pays 20% by Year 10. |
| Royalties to states, federal-state argument annually. | 73/25/2 constitutionally locked. Automatic distribution. |
| Traditional Owners depend on annual federal budget. | 2% of REL → Traditional Owner Services Fund. Constitutional guarantee. |
| $600B debt after the largest boom in Australian history. | REL surplus pays down debt and seeds Sovereign Wealth Fund. |
No memos pinned to this policy yet. When an MMP memo on this topic is published, it will appear here with a short summary. The full memo index is at moralmajority.com.au/memos.html.