The miners' fight against the new tax is an attack on our democracy.

Plutocracy, n., 1. The rule of wealth or of the wealthy. 2. A government or state in which the wealthy class rules.

SO HERE'S the situation. A small group of obscenely rich people are acting in concert to bring down an elected government that wants to tax super profits. They want to install a new government sympathetic to their interests.

The war over the government's proposed tax on the super profits of mining companies is revealing the ugly truth of Australia's modern parliamentary system. It is not so much the $100 million war chest and the ruthless exercise of power by the mining companies that is shocking, but the attitude of outraged entitlement they project.

The mining industry has always believed it should receive special treatment, but the boom of recent years has seen its assumption of a privileged place reach sublime levels. Having governments fawn over them has inflated the egos of the magnates to the point where the normal constraints of propriety no longer prevent them from saying in public what they say to each other in private.