Illustration:Simon LetchCredit:
To take the mickey would be as Australian as Akubra or RMs,although a cheap and distracting exercise. There is something at stake here that involves our fundamental social contract.
After paying its company tax – Fortescue is one of Australia’s biggest corporate taxpayers – the mining giant distributed dividends to Tattarang,the Forrests’ private investment group. Tattarang paid no further tax on its $431 million in income in 2021-22 because it legally donated that income to Minderoo,the Forrests’ registered charity. The philanthropy,diverse in its breadth and vast in its ambition,takes the guise of an alternative government obedient to moral values such as “NEGU – Never Ever Give Up” and “Frugality – Think of Ways to Do Things Better,Faster,Cheaper,Safer”.
Rather than sinking their iron ore profits into the generality of consolidated revenue,the Forrests try to save the world now,under their control and with results they can see,instead of entrusting that work to lumbering,inefficient governments. The notion that private individuals spend their money more productively than governments – and as a force for greater good – is the same idea that underpins all tax cuts for the wealthy,including Australia’s coming stage 3. Thediversion of profits from taxation to private control is as neoliberal as Ronald Reagan.
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In the Australian vernacular,that was expressed most memorably by Kerry Packer,who said in 1991 that “if anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax they want their heads read because as a government,I can tell you,you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra”.
Millions of Australians,and not just those who do not depend on government welfare,also think that we would spend our income better than the Commonwealth or the states. Many would even think they could do better than the Forrests,who,a day or so before the Akubra purchase,threw their weight behind the doomed Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan. This was not saving the world,but only the super-rich coming to the aid of the merely very rich,and only served to show the limits of financial muscle when Rugby Australia sent McLennan on his way.
The idea of the wealthiest functioning as a self-protective parallel government is as old as society,as economic history professor Guido Alfani wrote recently:“Throughout much of the Western world’s history,the wealthiest have been viewed in their communities as a potentially harmful presence,and they have attempted to allay this sentiment by using their riches to support their societies in times of crises like plagues,famines or wars.” When these crises occurred,the rich provided “private barns” that communities could tap into for the total good. This “tapping” consisted of mechanisms such as war bonds,increased taxation or,if the rich resisted,forced requisitioning. In return,the super-rich could save their souls and preserve their position.