What’s yours is mine: the touchy-feely side of the coal industry

Rio Tinto Australia's Kestrel mine in Central Queensland

It’s still unclear as to whether it would be our economic Armageddon if the RSPT was put in place in mid 2012 as planned, but everyone suffers when indecision and uncertainty are rife in a multi-billion-dollar industry.

The tax was announced and the mining giants panicked and sent their bean-counters to every abacus they could find.

While their boffins were doing the sums, mining juggernauts BHP Billiton, Macarthur Coal, Anglo Coal, Xstrata and Rio Tinto threw their hands up and told the world to just give them a second.

That time, which became two months, meant no expansions were announced and few construction projects were green-lighted.

The industry production line that keeps everyone from heavy hauling trucks to engineers and boilermakers in a job were suddenly grinding to a halt.

The new Minerals Resource Rent Tax was announced on July 2 after some serious haggling from BHP, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and the government – and in the Queensland mining world, it was like spring had sprung.

Not everyone was happy and Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is still looking to kybosh the tax plan and junior miners remain concerned about not being heard at the negotiating table.

But the big miners, the ones that employ tens of thousands of people who might fly from their home on the Sunshine Coast to Moranbah in Central Queensland, are happy.

They are still doing their number crunching on how this tax will affect projects, but the smiles are there.

And when companies of this size and scope are smiling, a whole chunk of Australia smiles with them.