SA needs politicians working collaboratively, not sloganeering ahead of the next Newspoll, says David Penberthy.

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TONY Abbott should take acting lessons.

On Wednesday he tried to affect the hangdog tone of a man gutted by the news that BHP Billiton had shelved its $30 billion expansion of Olympic Dam.

Yet he came across as an opportunist who could barely disguise his perverse glee at the demise of a project which he and some of his team have been death-riding for months, with no regard for the economic fallout on a state which desperately needs a win.

Mr Abbott led his team of SA Liberals by their noses into one of the parliamentary gardens for a collective display of sorrow.

The MPs he surrounded himself with are largely smart people and all proud South Australians and know much more about this project than North Shore Tony does, as was amply demonstrated by his abysmal performance on the ABC's 7.30 program where he parroted one-liners about the mining and carbon taxes, and ducked all relevant details about the specifics of the BHP decision.

It is worth contrasting Mr Abbott's efforts with those of Alexander Downer who wrote a thoughtful analysis for adelaidenow and The Advertiser about the demise of the project.

Mr Downer, who would never miss or even manufacture a chance to kick the ALP, made no reference in his piece to the mining tax and carbon tax, and even paid tribute to the South Australian Labor Government for doing everything it could to get the project over the line.

Mr Downer's measured assessment is probably shared by some of the federal Liberals who, as loyal South Australians, would rather see Olympic Dam get off the ground than become the vehicle for political point-scoring.

Most devastatingly for Mr Abbott, his analysis of what caused the BHP backdown is not shared by BHP itself.

In a desperate bit of backside-covering the Liberals have been trying to spin the line that BHP is privately attributing the pullout to the carbon tax and mining tax.

Not true. BHP is saying the exact same thing both publicly and privately.

Its chief executive Marius Kloppers could not have been clearer on radio yesterday when he said the tax settings surrounding the project had "not changed for six to seven years" and that the mining tax did not cover gold, uranium or copper, the three minerals found at Olympic Dam.

Privately, BHP executives were briefing state and federal Labor MPs this week and were asked point-blank if the carbon tax and mining tax had contributed at all, or whether they were briefing the Liberals that it had.

The answer was an emphatic no. These facts are made even starker by the legal requirements for disclosure by listed companies, which are bound by law to give honest reasons for a decision of this magnitude.

You could argue that the carbon tax has pushed up the cost of diesel. You could make a broad point about the signal a mining and carbon tax sends to investors.

My personal view is that the mining tax is dumb and should not have been introduced. But it is not the reason BHP has backed out. It is about commodity prices, the dollar, risk on return, and probably industrial relations.

If Mr Abbott was smarter he would be concentrating on the genuine scandal involving another iconic Australian company, Qantas.

Qantas has taken an absolute bath courtesy of the fact that the unions have got a stranglehold on the airline's management, under the insipid gaze of Fair Work Australia, which, as an industrial watchdog, makes a pretty good lapdog.

Australia is increasingly a nation of FIFO workers, and for years our national political leaders have had a fly in, fly out relationship with South Australia.

Mr Abbott is just another of their kind, popping over last week where he glibly said the challenge for SA was whether it becomes the next WA or another Tasmania. It was a glib remark, offensive to two states.

He should wrap his head around things before he pops in and shoots his mouth off.

What a state like mine needs is people working towards collaborative solutions, not inane sloganeering with one eye on the next Newspoll.

Originally published as Penberthy: Tony shoots mouth off