So, what are s
tructural constraints? I’ll start with some examples. In 2010, the Australian
Labor party announced a windfall tax on the profits of mining companies.
2
Mining firms immediately began warning that the new tax would deter them from investing, and that this would have disastrous consequences for the Australian economy. After two years of public debate, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by his deputy, Julia Gillard. After taking over from him, one of her first acts was to abandon the threatened mining tax, and to implement a much weaker alternative instead.