Australia has offered mining companies a "watershed" compromise on a controversial new tax which helped trigger last week's dramatic change of prime minister, according to a reports in the AFR on Wednesday.
The watered-down proposal makes key concessions to the powerful mining companies, including reducing the profit tax's impact on existing projects, the Australian Financial Review said, without citing sources.
Fairfax later reported that mining bosses were in talks with the PM today.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
But Assistant Treasurer Nick Sherry played down speculation that Gillard was poised to announce a deal as early as Wednesday as she looks to settle the row before calling national elections.
"As Julia Gillard has mentioned on many occasions, a key priority for the government is resolving the uncertainty" over the tax, Sherry told Sky News.
"There is a lot of hypothetical about details and changes, I think we should wait until those negotiations are concluded and announcements are made," he added.
Fortescue Metals' billionaire chief Andrew Forrest raised pressure on Gillard by saying Rudd was just 24 hours from announcing a deal before he was sensationally unseated in last Thursday's quickfire leadership challenge.
"The previous prime minister was cut off bringing a solution onto the table," he told a conference in Perth on Tuesday, according to public broadcaster ABC.
"I would suggest that the new prime minister brings that solution to the table for a discussion with the whole mining industry as soon as possible."
Gillard meanwhile called for "a bit more light and bit less heat" in the debate over the tax, which envisaged a 40 percent levy on mining profits over six percent.
"Actually, there's a bit of agreement here: a bit of agreement that Australians are entitled to a fairer share, a bit of agreement that the mining industry can pay more tax, so let's build on that," she told commercial radio.
Gillard's first act in office was to broker a truce between the government and the mining industry which saw both cancel TV advertising campaigns on the issue.
Mining provides Australia's two biggest exports, iron ore and coal, and helped the country skirt the worst of the financial crisis thanks to massive demand from Asian countries such as China.
