Coalition 'on its own'

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has told SBS that Tony Abbott is isolated on the issue of the mining tax, after the Opposition Leader firmly reiterated he would not be supporting the reworked tax.

The headline rate of 40 per cent has been reduced to 30 per cent, despite the federal government's previous refusals to back down on the rate.

'Labor supports a great big new tax on mining - the coalition doesn't. It's as simple as that', Abbott told the media this morning.

Labor needed a tax because it had turned a $20 billion budget surplus into a $57 billion deficit, Mr Abbott said.

'The Opposition will oppose the new minerals tax," he said. "We will oppose it in Opposition and we will rescind it in government.'

Mr Abbott also described it as the mining industry getting the best deal from a bad government, saying miners were effectively negotiating with a gun at their heads and the new deal will still hit the industry hard.

Coalition on its own: Ferguson

But Ferguson says the Coalition is now on its own.

'The only real group in Australia now, Tony Abbott and the Opposition saying 'no'' (sic), he said.

'These companies have now accepted that they will pay a bigger share of their profits to the community.'

With the tax rates resolved, the issue is set to play a big part in the election.

'I don't mind arguing out that difference', Ferguson said in an interview with World News Australia.

Government has backed down: Critics

But there is concern in some quarters that the big three miners - BHP, Xstrata and Rio Tinto, have had such a say at all.

Greens leader Bob Brown says small business will pay the price of the new tax, and has called Gillard's concessions a "massive backdown" which will be paid by everyday Australians.

He's promising to heavily scrutinise the tax legislation in the Senate.

Amanda Tattersall of Unions NSW was criticial of the say given to the big three companies.

'The average person in the street has been totally left out', she told Sky News.

Meanwhile, one of the economists who signed the letter supporting the resource tax has questioned the influence of the big miners on the democratic process.

In an interview with the ABC, Professor John Freebairn of the University of Melbourne, called it 'quite a scary development for democracy.'

'If I had a hundred million dollars to invest as a miner, would I spend it on trying to keep the tax rate down or would I spend it on trying to find more efficient ways to extract minerals?', he asked.

Smaller miners expressed concern that they were not party to the negotiations, while SBS Online reader Anthony Mills, having his say, summed the issue up for many.

'I think I would like to negotiate the amount of tax I pay', he wrote. But Ferguson defended the govnernment negotiating with the big three miners.

'Politics is the art of the possible', he said. 'And so is the art of negotiations.'