He's not a miner, he's a very naughty boy

I keep reading in the paper and hearing on the news that “miners oppose the super-profits tax” or “miners” want this or think that. But when I read on or listen some more I find out that the people they are talking about are not “miners” at all. They are in fact people who own mines, or people who are the Chief Executives or the main shareholders in massive corporations that own mines. They are people who do not go underground or into an open cut each day to earn their crust. They do not dig into the ground with picks and shovels, nor do they drill into rock and pack the gap with explosive.

They are not miners! They are very rich, very powerful people with a vested interest in low taxes, weak unions and a deregulated economy. They ought to be called then, “mine owners,” or “chief executives” or “leading shareholders in mining corporations” because that is what they are.

In fact miners, real miners that is, the ones who risk their lives and get very dirty, are quite particular about who is called a “miner” and who is not. I have a friend who used to be a Health & Safety Officer in the Pilbara and he will say, ironically, “well, as an ex-miner…” and launch into some comment about hard work or dangerous machinery. But you see, he is being ironic. Yes, he used to work in a mine. No, he doesn’t really claim to be a miner. Yet he was much closer to being a miner than Clive Palmer or Twiggy Forrest or Hugh Morgan, all of whom will be described in the mainstream media as “miners.”

I have another friend who was born in Broken Hill as were his parents, all of his grandparents and many of the generation before that. His father worked underground, in the mines, for twenty or thirty years. But if you speak to him he will make a point of saying “I wasn’t a miner though.” You see even though he was deep under the earth for much of his working life, he wasn’t literally at the coalface (well, it being Broken Hill, it wasn’t so much a coalface as a silver or lead face) wielding a pick and shovel or a bloody great drill, so he wasn’t a miner and will make a point of saying so.

Why is that working people have some pride about not claiming to be things they are not? And why is it that super-rich mine owners want to describe themselves as “miners”? God forbid, Twiggy Forrest made himself a multi-billionaire before his company had even sold a shovel-full of ore. Yet he is known as a “miner.”

The reason of course is simple. It sounds better to say “miners oppose the super-profits tax” than to say “mine owners oppose the super-profits tax.” It sounds like hard-working people in hard hats with dirt on their hands are opposing a fair distribution of our common wealth. When in fact it is the super-rich selfishly holding onto the wealth that is not theirs to begin with.

Miners! The likes of Clive Palmer and Twiggy Forrest claiming to be “miners” is like a transport minister claiming to be a bus driver.