No gold medal for Oz: BHP’s Geraldine Slattery ramps up productivity rhetoric in first speech since CEO snub

Australia would never have produced athletes like Ash Barty or Cathy Freeman if the nation’s sporting prowess matched its mediocre economic productivity, according to BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery.

Ms Slattery used her first public speech since missing out on the top job at BHP to amplify warnings that Australia’s weak productivity risks a flight of mining capital to other jurisdictions.

“A recent study commissioned by the Business Council of Australia ranked Australia 21st out of 42 countries in 2025, down from 17th in 2019,” Ms Slattery told a Minerals Council of Australia event in Canberra on Tuesday.

“Being 21 out of 42 would have never given us sporting greats like Ash Barty or Cathy Freeman, and we should not accept it as a measure of our economic strength.

“Because in any competitive sport, the ladder matters . . . in a tighter global contest for capital, the middle of the table is where investment decisions start to drift elsewhere.”

Her comments come a day after MCA chair Andrew Michelmore accused unions of a “targeted campaign against BHP”, which was stifling productivity in the nation’s most important mining region.

BHP sites in the Pilbara recorded almost 900 right-of-entry requests in 2025 and 164 to March 10 in 2026, according to Mr Michelmore, equating to an average of 2.4 every day.

“That doesn’t help productivity,” he said on Monday night.

“The Pilbara’s co-operative workplace model has delivered the highest wages of any industry, world leading productivity and secure jobs through modern workplace arrangements.

“Now, rising disruption and escalating right-of-entry activity risks undermining the productivity and reliability that it has defined the Pilbara region for more than three decades.”

BHP has gradually ramped up warnings that money which would have automatically been earmarked for its Pilbara iron ore division might soon be invested elsewhere.

Earnings from its South America-centric copper operations recently overtook Pilbara iron ore.

“What we are seeing around the world, whether it’s in Chile, Argentina, Canada or the US . . . is a lot of focus by governments on how they can create the right enabling conditions for investments,” incoming BHP chief executive Brandon Craig said last week.

“It is very clear when you engage with countries across different parts of the world, a lot of these countries are putting across very attractive investment regimes. Australia has to compete with that.”

Mr Craig will take over from Mike Henry as BHP’s CEO on July 1. Mr Craig beat out a number of internal candidates, most notably Ms Slattery, for the top job.

While not directly referencing the ongoing Iran war, Ms Slattery on Tuesday also said the global mining and energy landscape had “fundamentally changed”.

“We are not in a period of temporary disruption. We are in a period of structural volatility,” she said.

“Geopolitical fragmentation has repositioned resources and energy from traded commodities into instruments of national power.”