It was Niccolo Machiavelli who in 1532 observed that the person who seeks to change something has the most difficult task in politics.

<p>Like so many things that the Rudd government does, the mining super profits tax proposal has had the appearance of being hastily cobbled together and rushed out in the shortest of time frames.</p>

Those who stand to benefit from change can’t foresee their advantage and won’t support the reformer, Machiavelli theorised, while those whose interests will be affected by reform will fight tooth and nail to oppose it.

Machiavelli’s words ring true in the current mining industry super tax debate that dogs the Rudd government.

Precipitated by the general review of taxation by head of treasury Ken Henry, the mining industry super profits tax (as it is called) has been front and centre in the national policy debate ever since.

Like so many things that the Rudd government does, the mining super profits tax proposal has had the appearance of being hastily cobbled together and rushed out in the shortest of time frames.

Rudd then further confuses the debate with poorly chosen rhetoric that inflames his opponents but does little to assure his potential supporters that the initiative might benefit them.

Thus the debate has been bedevilled by confusion over what rate of tax the mining industry currently pays, what will happen to the royalty system that the governments of the resource-rich states apply, whether quarries and fertiliser manufacturers will be hit by the tax and whether this will be passed on to consumers by way of higher prices for food and groceries, and so on.

The debate is also underpinned by the legend the mining industry has managed to construct that it has been responsible for Australia’s avoiding the worst of the Global Financial Crisis.

Those with vested interests whose financial returns might be affected by this proposed tax have begun a furious opposition campaign, just as Machiavelli predicted.

This has included public appearances by the individuals who run these big mining operations in Australia accusing the Rudd government of every imaginable transgression ranging from incompetence to an ideological desire to convert Australia in to a communist state.

Mining magnates clearly think hyperbole has some value when complaining to the public about government policy.

There have also been (largely forgettable) full-page advertisements in the daily newspapers although, curiously, television advertising has not yet appeared.

Older members of the community will remember the stirring television advertising campaign extolling the national importance of mining aired back in the 1970s.

This appeared when another Labor government (the Whitlam government) announced that it was going to try to recoup some of the profits being repatriated to overseas owners on behalf of the Australian community.

The Whitlam government, of course, did not last very long and if Kevin Rudd isn’t careful, he might not last very long either.

The Whitlam government found sectorial mining interests to be powerful foes.

So did Bob Hawke back in the mid-1980s when his proposal to oversee the signing of a treaty of reconciliation with Indigenous Australians alarmed the mining industry who feared the consequences of such a legal document on royalty negotiations with traditional land owners.

Hawke’s treaty never got off the ground.

The Rudd government’s strategy appears to be one of trying to garner public support by promising to divert some of the extra revenue from this proposed tax in to superannuation.

The rest of the revenue, of course, would represent an important income stream for government that could be used to try to return budgets to surplus.

All of this is laudable policy, but one of the problems the Rudd government has had has been to try to sell this side of the deal to the public.

The opinion polls are indicating luke-warm enthusiasm amongst the electorate for the Rudd government and its policy ideas.

What this reflects is a situation where not only does this government botch the process by which policy is formulated, it doesn’t seem to be able to sell its ideas either. In the meantime, it continues to amass an array of powerful enemies ahead of the next election.

The mining industry now joins other aggrieved groups like the environmental ‘lobby’ angered about climate change, those who took the government at its word when it promised to build new child-care centres, those who hoped Labor’s asylum seeker policy wouldn’t be a pale shadow of the previous Howard government’s approach seeking to take aim at Mr Rudd at the next election.

If the Liberal-National coalition were to ever get its act together, the Rudd government could be in real trouble at the next federal election.

Dr Economou is a senior lecturer in Politics at Monash University.