The mining industry is already pouring out lies in response to the government’s industrial relations changes, just like it did in response to Labor’s mining tax over a decade ago. Except, this time the lies are even more absurd.
In fact it’s almost a case of “come back, Mitch Hooke, all is forgiven”, if the quality of the latest scare campaign from the Minerals Council is anything to go by.
Dutifully written up by News Corp stenographers, the mining industry’s argument against industrial relations reform centres on the claim “that 22,000 construction jobs and more than 11,000 ongoing jobs could be at risk” from “critical minerals, lithium, copper and other resources projects”.
“More lithium for batteries, more copper for solar panels, and more cobalt for electric vehicles. Not more uncertainty and risk that will simply chase away investment from our shores, at such a crucial hour,” says Minerals Council head Tania Constable — or, as The Australian’s Geoff Chambers describes her, “Mr Constable”.
How the mighty have fallen — in the days of Mitch Hooke, the Minerals Council’s scare campaigns would have featured hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions in investment risk, sending foreign capital to flight. If 33,000 jobs is the best the Minerals Council can do, are they even trying?
Notice that most of those jobs are in construction — which is currently under massive pressure with price inflation and workforce shortages. Frankly, we could do with 22,000 more construction workers available to work on hard-pressed major infrastructure projects, or even in residential construction. As for 11,000 jobs, that’s around 0.4% of the mining workforce.
You can see why the Minerals Council is terrified that industrial relations reform might spark a massive surge in wages in the sector, though — in last week’s wage price index data for the September quarter, wages in the mining sector were already exploding, with an annual growth figure of… um, 2.7%. Constable must be worried wages growth will hit a shocking 3%.
Now let’s get to the serious bit — where the Minerals Council is blatantly lying about the risk to jobs and investment.
Australia is the world’s biggest lithium exporter, and since last year, the price of lithium has increased nearly sixfold. Lithium miner Pilbara Minerals went from never making a profit to making more than half a billion dollars; another miner, Allkem, saw revenue grow 800% (not a typo) and make nearly half a billion dollars. The industry predicts the lithium price will remain around nearly US$50,000 a tonne into next year.
In the September quarter, sales from Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes mine in Western Australia — which has been producing lithium since the mid-1980s — totalled 338,000 tonnes of spodumene (the source for lithium), which led to a quarterly sales revenue of $1.84 billion from the mine, a 112% jump from the June quarter. There was no sales revenue for the same quarter of 2021-22. A crude annualising of that quarterly figure gives a revenue figure for the year to June 2023 of more than $7 billion from one mine for Talison.
Pilbara Minerals had an equally productive September quarter — just more than US$1 billion, which means it is heading for revenue of more than $4 billion for the year to next June.
That means between Greenbushes and Pilbara Minerals, lithium could be generating gross sales revenues approaching $12 billion by next June, which in turn could be most of the export revenue forecast for the financial year or around $14 billion.
The resources department forecasts lithium to stay at nearly US$50,000 a tonne into 2023 and will still be nearly double 2021 prices in 2024. And it’s not just lithium. “Metals central to the global energy transition (copper, nickel, lithium) are set to earn $33 billion in 2022–23, double what they earned in 2020–21,” government forecasts say.
“The transition to low-emission technologies will add significantly to the demand for non-ferrous exports over the outlook period. Notably, lithium exports are now forecast to rise by over 180% to $13.8 billion in 2022–23 but then drop to $12.9 billion in 2023–24, as prices ease. Lithium exports in 2021–22 were almost $5 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2020–21.”
And despite being namechecked in the News Corp stenography, BHP — evidently untroubled by the industrial relations bill — wants to spend A$9.6 billion to buy smaller copper, gold and nickel miner OZ Minerals. That’s a big investment for a company notionally ready to flee the industry, and which already has its own WA nickel business.
The Minerals Council is seriously claiming that mining companies are going to turn their backs on the massive historic opportunity of renewables technology, and the billions that will flow from it, because they might have to pay slightly higher wages. You’d have to be a News Corp journalist to believe that.
Hell hath no fury like a Big Miner that’s being forced to give money back to the country that it’s used to ripping off.
Nor hath it a more loyal friend than News Corp…except maybe the Fin Review.
If paying tax is so hard for this industry, maybe it would be simpler to just nationalize it outright. I’d vote for that.
Exactly. If we as a country had of nationalised all of our mining resources we would now be driving and streets of gold, and our most pressing problem would be designing vaults big enough for our cash.
It’s an ABSOLUTE disgrace how little Australians get in return for there own resources and generally, it’s the vile coalition that has foisted this on us.
The ALP are nearly as bad. Watching them tying themselves in knots over current energy prices is agonising.
Super profits tax a no-brainer.
Even the despicable Tories in Britain are floating one.
Let’s do a Norway!
Love it! Sweet music to my ears!!
50% of profit to Public needs, they keep 50 would bring more balance. All catered for.
Last time that was seriously mooted, it cost Australia its most progressive government, to the plotting of our esteemed Head of State in Britain, and our forever-friends in Washington in collusion with the Liberal party.
Why is it so hard to find people who are angry about this? I can’t understand why those scumbags promptly won the next election, either.
I too am extremely annoyed at how little return Australians get for our non renewable natural resources. In fact Im furious. Its not just the LNP. Labor is complicit in this too. Hum and harring about an excess profits tax now. Give me a break.
Dont take any crap from miners.
The $19M scare campaign may have worked back in 2010 but Australians are more savvy about the wealth of the miners’ nowadays.
The government could counter-attack any campaign with ads highlighting the latest ATO revelations about precisely how much (ie: how little) tax the miners paid last financial year.
So WHY don’t they do it? WHY????
Ahem… <whispers> Donations.
It could start a discussion about our woeful tax system which no government will ever have the guts to revise/improve.
It’s funny what counts as “reform” these days compared to say 30 years ago. I mean, when being touted by the more Centrist of two main parties. The bar just keeps getting lowered and our expectations of what’s possible diminished with each election cycle. Suits the Tories just fine of course. For them reform equals reduced regs and taxation.
Big Businesses who pay little to no tax, rake in taxpayer subsidies, tells us that of course they want to see wages increase, just not at the expense of their profits.
I say, make them pay taxes and rescind all taxpayer subsidies. Return our money to Aged Care, NDIS, Health, Education, JobSeeker etc. That will wipe their privileged smiles off their faces whilst actually benefiting those that need it.
And they still wil be well off exploiting resources that WE own.
Their greed can never be satisfied.
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If the miners paid their fair share of taxes, we could fund our aged care, NDIS, education health etc., Instead we get a photo 0p in the paper/TV of an entrepreneur funding their own agenda rather than the Australia’s community needs, which doesn’t always come with a plaque, drinks and nibbles after.
Taxation Department needs some backbone from the government.