Australian billionaires take to the streets for tax protest
""It was, by any measure, a most unusual rally. Many of the placard-waving protesters gathered in a Perth park wore suits and ties, and impassioned speeches were delivered from the back of a flat-bed truck by two billionaires, including Australia's richest woman.
Gina Rinehart's pearls glistened in the sunlight as she bellowed through a megaphone: "Axe the tax!" Ms Rinehart has a personal fortune of $4.8bn (£2.7bn). Andrew Forrest, in monogrammed worker's overalls, told the well-mannered crowd that Australia was "turning Communist". Mr Forrest is the country's fourth richest person, worth an estimated $4.2bn. Both Mr Forrest and Ms Rinehart have amassed their wealth from digging up iron ore in the remote Pilbara region. Like other mining magnates, they have grown fabulously rich during a resources boom based largely on China's insatiable demand for the coal, iron, nickel and other minerals that lie in abundance beneath Australia's rust-red soil. Now Kevin Rudd's Labour government is planning to levy an extra tax on the mining industry, and the industry is furious. The issue has dominated the political agenda for weeks, and is even threatening to torpedo Mr Rudd's chance of being returned to power at an election due to be held before the end of this year....""
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