The appointment of Australia’s first female Prime Minister is very welcome, the circumstances of her elevation are not, says Prosper Australia.

“Dumping Kevin Rudd is obviously linked to the Resource Super Profits Tax,” Prosper spokesman Karl Fitzgerald said today. “Mark Arbib and the NSW Right faction may well have been bought out by the Machiavellian miners.

“Tragically, we have to wait 18 months to know whether and how much the Machiavellian miners have paid.

The Australian Electoral Commission will eventually tell us, but in an age of instant information, this delay is totally unacceptable.

Advertising supremo Harold Mitchell summed up the mood that led to Kevin Rudd’s downfall in the AFR of 23 June:

It is an ‘amazing fact’ that ‘ordinary people on the street are barracking for five people… who have got so much money they don’t know what to do with it’.

“If policy-distorting donations are to continue, politicians should be announced as the Member for Rio Tinto and have the company logo embroidered into their suits – like race car drivers. 

“We need to know who represents whom.

Consider Rudd’s raft of reforms: saying sorry to indigenous people, signing the Kyoto accord, free insulation, a $900 GFC handout, no recession, hospital reform and national broadband.  Now, for trying to secure a share of our resource profits for Australians, his leadership is terminated.

“History will compare him to Gough Whitlam, a similar fast-paced Prime Minister willing to take on monopolists, tragically overthrown in a constitutional coup,” Fitzgerald said.

“Yes, there were issues with Rudd’s communication skills, but all supporters of the Henry Review must now fear the political knife will cut down any tax reform that threatens entrenched interests.

“We must maintain vigilance in the belief that incentives belong to entrepreneurs, not the beneficiaries of the privilege of mining and hoarding the economic rent of the land.

“Gillard must come out strongly and call the lobbyists for who they are. She must assert control over the RSPT rather than negotiate with each and every individual company.

“Sure, allow miners a return of 8.8% before the tax kicks in, but keep the EBIT profits rate at 40%. And move quickly,” Fitzgerald concluded.