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Mining industry launches brazen attack on Government

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Minerals Council CEO Tania Constable warned the Government about the “perils” of undermining the mining industry (Screenshot via YouTube)

The mining industry launched a war of words on the Federal Government, an absurd move considering its minuscule contribution to the economy, writes Adam Gottschalk.

“Undermine it at your peril.” 

Tania Constable, the CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia, may have sounded like she was addressing a war council when she delivered this warning to the Government earlier this month.

In reality, she was talking at the Minerals Council’s annual parliamentary dinner, cautioning the Government about the “perils” of undermining the mining industry. 

The fact that an industry employing only 2% of Australian workers feels sufficiently entitled to threaten the Government on its own turf is remarkable. It’s absurd. But it’s been a consistent feature of Australian politics for years, and it reveals the extraordinary hold the industry exerts over our politicians and our national psyche.

This influence was on full display earlier this month when the Minerals Council held its annual Minerals Week, with the industry’s fiery attacks on government the subject of news article after news article.

It started with the glitzy dinner at Parliament House (think $2,000 a pop for the privilege of eating in the same room as the PM). Constable declared that “reckless” industrial relations reforms, state “royalty raids” and “onerous” environmental approvals threatened to derail the nation's future prosperity.

Constable said:

“Any attack on the Pilbara is an attack on the entire mining sector. Just like an attack on Queensland coal revenues is an attack on the entire mining sector.”

And by extension, an attack on the nation. 

The thing is, mining is a very small part of the Australian economy.

Of total government revenue, 95% comes from industries other than mining.

The industry is also 86% foreign-owned, meaning mining profits largely flow offshore into the coffers of multinationals and their shareholders. 

For fossil fuels, a key part of the mining industry, the economic contribution is even more measly.

Australian governments charge no royalties on 56% of the gas that is exported from Australia, meaning they essentially give companies the gas for free.

Teachers pay more tax than the gas industry. The Government collects more money from students repaying their HECS debt than it does from the petroleum resource rent tax.

And Australians consistently overestimate the number of people employed by oil and gas, because they really don’t employ that many people. Only 0.15% of Australian workers are employed in oil and gas extraction.

Nevertheless, a couple of days after the Mineral Council’s frosty dinner, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was at pains to reassure the mining industry that if elected, his party would be their best friend and would fast-track over 420 mining and energy projects. Why would someone who wants to lead the country openly court an industry that makes such a small economic contribution, instead of championing the interests of the wider community?

And this saga didn’t end there, with Constable appearing on Radio National Thursday morning to repeat the industry attack lines. 

Some of these tensions seem to have flared up following Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to refuse the McPhillamys gold mine in NSW on cultural heritage grounds a few weeks ago. But, as Plibersek was at pains to emphasise in a speech at the minerals conference this month, she has approved over 40 mining projects since being elected, including a bunch of coal mines.

The mining industry really shouldn’t have that much to complain about, especially when you remember the Government’s Future Gas Strategy (which seems to draw inspiration from Buzz Lightyear in its promise of gas ‘to 2050 and beyond’) and the billions it receives in fossil fuel subsidies.

Yet the industry still feels entitled to berate the Government.

Mining is not propping up the economy. And it’s contributed far more to the prosperity of multinationals and their shareholders than it has to ordinary Australians. 

It has been a sorry sight to see the Government chastised like a schoolchild by an industry whose contribution to the country is overblown. It has also been a sorry sight to see the opposition toadying up to that same industry like a teacher’s pet. 

The Government is supposed to work for Australian citizens. What the recent drama has reinforced is that the Government often spends more time focusing on the interests of big companies (Australian or not). And when those companies feel the Government isn’t showing them enough attention, they kick up a real fuss.

Adam Gottschalk is an Anne Kantor Fellow in the Australia Institute’s Climate and Energy Program.

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