Re GST. This tax is collected by the Commonwealth and distributed to the States and Territories by formula. Due to the downturn in the economy from tourism and everything else you can think of this means less money for the States in years to come. If the owners of Virgin will not put in lose change to extend their life support program this collapse is the tip of the iceberg. Even Qantas is small fry compared to keeping the mines open for as long as there are buyers for the coal and ore or employees to keep the operations going.
The importance of the mines can not be underestimated. Just in W.A the State government receives almost $10B in royalties and the Federal receives almost $8B in Company tax from mining activities. I do not have other figures except to say the figures for coal are even greater than iron ore.