BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie says BHP boss admits tax regime is 'fair' In his debut Australian speech, Andrew MacKenzie avoided direct questions about Tony Abbott's company tax plan and the mining tax, but said BHP Billiton currently pays "a fair amount." The flow of wealth from the mines of Australia's north-west to its cities in the south-east is now permanent, according to new BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie. Despite fears the peak of the mining investment boom is in the past, Mr Mackenzie said the link between mining growth and consumer spending would not go away. "I believe that this impact is now permanent," he said. BHP Billiton's newly appointed chief executive Andrew Mackenzie. "" (Government's) role is to provide efficient regulatory systems, foreign, fiscal and trade policies that encourage stability, and open markets,"" Mr Mackenzie said. ""And a modern industrial relations framework that draws employees and employers on to the same page so that all sign up to a team that wants to win."" BHP had cut its own costs, producing more in less time, he said. The fiercest competition to Australia's resources industry included China's low cost coking coal, which is used to make steel, Mr Mackenzie said. Thermal energy coal from the US, liquefied natural gas from the US, Canada and Africa, and copper from Chile and Peru were also competing against Australia. Mr Mackenzie's speech came on the day that opposition leader Tony Abbott vowed to cut company tax rates, and Mr Mackenzie took the opportunity to remind Australians that his company was a big contributor to the public purse. We are Australia's largest taxpayer. In the 2012 financial year our tax and royalty payments were over $US9 billion," he said. Earlier this year BHP chair Jac Nasser also used a lunchtime speech in Melbourne to highlight the large amount of tax his company pays. Mr Nasser said BHP's effective tax rate in Australia was 45 per cent, and the company had paid about $US9 billion in taxes and royalties in this country in 2012. Speaking after the function, Mr Mackenzie said he would work through the issue of corporate tax with "whoever wins the next election." Mr Mackenzie did not give any further indication of whether BHP would commit funding to a potash project in Canada, with that matter and other operational details set to get more airtime at the full year results later this month. Last week a long standing potash selling cartel in eastern Europe collapsed, in a move that is tipped to see potash prices fall in the near term. That development was seen by some as likely to dissuade BHP from investing further in Canada's Jansen potash project, but Mr Mackenzie said the ructions were not a complete surprise. "We've always said potash is a business which will lose some of it's cartel like structure in time and become more globally traded like everything else, so to some extend we predicted what has happened," he said.