The mining industry must live with the revised resources tax since it is the best available deal that could be cut out from the Gillard government for now, and junior mining companies who felt left out from the negotiations must speak out now and grab the chance to be heard.

Thus said Rio Tinto executive director Sam Walsh on Tuesday, as he defended his company's role in forging the tax deal, which effectively reduced the previous tax's headline rate of 40 percent to 22.5 percent to be carried by the new tax now known as minerals resource rent tax.

Speaking before the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia conference held in Perth, Mr Walsh conceded that the agreed rate is still higher compared to other mining regimes across the globe "but it's something that we are going to have to live with, with the current government that's really as best as we can do."

He also noted that junior miners may have been left out when Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata held their final talks with the federal government but he assured that the three giant companies represented the industry and such small contingent probably helped the discussion to arrive at a conclusion.

Mr Walsh added that all parties which took part in the negotiations acknowledged that feedbacks coming from junior companies and business houses would substantially contribute to the deal's actual implementation which is being facilitated at this time by a committee headed by Resource Minister Martin Ferguson and former BHP chief Don Argus.

He revealed that the deal is poised to allow junior companies a relatively higher tax threshold with considerations for them to earn between $50 million to $100 million each year though he deferred such decisions to the government.

Mr Walsh gave assurance too that Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan appeared to be partial on the government's flexibility for those who were not involved in the last leg of the discussions.

He characterised the tax debate for the past weeks as quite unfortunate and decried that the previous government offered no meaningful consultation during those fateful times until the last minutes, which saw the downfall of Kevin Rudd as prime minister and the rise of Ms Gillard to the leadership and the subsequent softening of the government in its stand on the RSPT issue.

Mr Walsh said that the resource industry has been always ready to pay the taxes due to it and also support meaningful tax reform measures that would not kill the industry, which he believed is the purposed of the new tax deal whereas under the proposed RSPT the focus was merely allowing the industry to remain viable in its operations, which according to him, pushed the mining companies on the back foot.