Departing Minerals Council of Australia head Brendan Pearson

In one of the more improbable moments of our peculiar economic times, it turns out you can be too pro-minerals for the Minerals Council of Australia. The head of the MCA, Brendan Pearson, has moved on after the council’s biggest member, BHP, very publicly distanced itself from Pearson’s relentless support for coal.

BHP is currently embarked on a big campaign to repair a corporate image badly soiled by constant tax avoidance, a dam disaster that killed 17 people in Brazil, bribery allegations and the trashing of $10 billion in shareholder wealth through dud investments. As part of this, last week BHP backed a Clean Energy Target and cleared its throat about continuing membership of the MCA. Within days, Pearson was gone. Easy decision, really — which would you prefer to lose, a CEO or your biggest member?

But what might be lost in the focus on BHP is that the Minerals Council has become increasingly embarrassing as a lobby group. Just this year alone, the council has:

  • Launched a campaign to call for industrial relations reform in mining despite independent data showing massive productivity growth in mining and the sector having less than half of the wages growth of the private sector;
  • Launched a campaign for nuclear power in Australia just as a major new nuclear power plant was being abandoned in the US; and
  • Launched yet another coal campaign — although this time they avoided using hard figures after Crikey busted them in 2014 for inflating the number of coal miners.

Don’t be too upset for Pearson, though. Non-senator for coal Matt Canavan has called for the boys from the black stuff to look after their man — echoing Tony Abbott’s demand before the last election that the mining industry find a job for Ian Macfarlane, which they duly did. As the Good Book suggests, we expect Pearson will be welcomed into the lobbyist afterlife by his coal masters with, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”