The problem with that VC is you end up with the majority of work being low paid menial task based, higher wages are directed at higher skill levels where the business is trying to attract a more skilled workforce that can value add at all levels of the process. This usually involves making something, not just digging stuff out of the ground.
When the work demographic becomes mostly low paid, that then affects the tax revenue stream, which in turn affects the governments ability to supply welfare and public services.
So then the tax burden has to be changed to where the money is being made and their taxes have to be increased, which then makes their product more expensive and less competitive e.g our resources.
Vicious circle starts and ends up with a small section of the community very wealthy and the rest in poverty, which I suppose is o.k if you are in the wealthy camp, not so good if you are in the other camp.
As others have mentioned and something that built Australia to what it is today, companies should be made to value add here, or pay more for the resources they take. We mine and export all the materials required to make batteries, we should have a battery industry, we mine rare earths and process them in SE Asia, there should be a penalty for that.
A perfect example of how easy it and sensible it would be, is unfolding as we speak in W.A.
The BP refinery at Kwinana is closing down in 6 months, on the Southern boundary of the complex is BHP brand new battery grade nickel processing plant, on the Northern boundary is the brand new nearly completed lithium hydroxide plant.
BP wants to move forward with technology and future fuels, they have the ideal place to build the worlds leading battery giga factory, will they?
The plant will have a permanent workforce of more than 200, the majority of whom were expected to come from the local Kwinana or Rockingham area and surrounding suburbs.
I know there is more money in digging and offloading dirt and better share purchases, but it isn't much of a future for our grandkids. Meanwhile everyone, especially the media, has more to say about the U.S elections than this issue. ?