Australia should address miners’ concerns, industry group says

Australia should resolve issues related to the environment approval process, said Tania Constable, chief executive of the country’s minerals council, highlighting the industry’s concerns that the development of new mines will become increasingly challenging.

The comments follow growing tensions between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left government and the mining sector on a range of policies, including industrial relations and energy laws. The industry has also expressed concerns that some environment bills currently being debated in parliament could result in tougher rules for fresh projects.

“You could forgive our industry for feeling like it is under siege, or at times, even punished for our success,” Constable, of the Minerals Council of Australia, said at an annual dinner in Canberra. “The environmental approvals process must be sorted out.”

The two sides have also been at loggerheads over the government’s pro-union industrial relations approach.

Albanese said at the event that Australia doesn’t compete and succeed by “cutting wages or cutting corners.” The prime minister said he wanted to work “constructively” with the mining industry, a sentiment echoed by Rio Tinto Group’s iron ore chief executive Simon Trott.

Trott warned the sector was facing “a more globally competitive environment than it has for a long time,” saying miners needed policies that “drive productivity and spur the innovations that we need for the road ahead.”

(By Ben Westcott)