Protesters rally against the Rudd government's proposed mining tax in 2010. Credit:Tony Ashby "The mining tax that was repealed, we won't be bringing back," he told Adelaide radio 5AA. He said while he still believed in "fairly sharing" Australia's "natural wealth" the saga had taught Labor a valuable lesson. "There are lessons out of the mining tax - before you do anything, work with the states and work with industry - no surprises," he said. He said Labor still had two years to develop new policies to take to the next election and while it was "early days" for him to "start pronouncing" new party positions on issues, he vowed to consult with the "affected parties". "What we will do is to make sure that before we were to ever introduce major economic changes we will consult with the affected parties," he said at a media conference in Adelaide later on Tuesday.

West Australian Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan was a lone voice in the caucus supporting the repeal of the mining tax, not because she opposed the policy but because she acknowledged Labor had bungled its implementation. She backed her leader's comments on Tuesday, but said there could be a chance in the future to reintroduce a profits based tax if it offered her home state a greater share of revenue to compensate for the "dreadful inequities" she says WA currently experiences under the GST-sharing agreement. "We should not be panicked out of revisiting the mining tax but we've got to go back to the fundamental concept of the mining tax as envisioned by the minerals tax and the Henry tax review, which is a profits based system which replaces the royalties system and then we would need to lock in legislatively a profit-sharing arrangement with the states," she told Fairfax Media. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann accused Mr Shorten of using "weasel words to hide plans for another mining tax". He said the mining industry already pays its fair share of taxes through company tax and royalties paid to the states.