EDITORIAL: Resources Minister Madeleine King’s attack on BHP a worrying sign for mining industry

To borrow a phrase from Mineral Resources boss Chris Ellison, it’s the s.......t time for the nation to have a Resources Minister who is anything other than 100 per cent committed to keeping the industry strong.

Iron ore prices have been erratic, with fears a longer-term downturn could be on the horizon. The nickel collapse has triggered a wave of mine closures in WA. Lithium too is in freefall, with a number of new projects already on ice.

Across the country, environmental activists are weaponising cultural heritage protections to do anything to stand in the way of new developments.

The Government’s new Nature Positive reform too has industry worried.

All the while the wider economy stands on the brink of recession.

What the industry needs at this time of significant uncertainty is a champion in Canberra. Someone who understands what miners need in order for the resources industry to continue to generate wealth and improve living standards for Australians.

Instead, they’ve got Madeleine King.

Curiously, the West Australian minister has chosen now to pick a fight with BHP, siding with the unions as they continue to muscle onto worksites in the Pilbara, helped along by changes to collective bargain rules, part of industrial relations reforms gifted to them by the Labor Government.

BHP has been among the most strident critics of that reform, including the controversial Same Job, Same Pay legislation which the Big Australian said could put 4500 jobs in jeopardy and its $300 million FutureFit trainee program on shaky ground.

But those warnings appear to have fallen on deaf ears, with Ms King instead accusing BHP of relentless whinging.

“They’ve always railed against Labor policy,” Ms King said.

“Whether in opposition or government. . . they’re the first to go to the Murdoch press to do a story around what they don’t like about what a Labor government chooses to do and it wouldn’t matter what it is.”

Ms King also dismissed concerns from the industry that a return to widespread unionism in the Pilbara could drive up costs and curtail productivity in Australia’s most important economic region by increasing industrial action and divorcing wage growth from profits as “hysteria”.

It’s thanks to mining that the Australian economy has proven so resilient in recent years.

So when the big miners speak, Canberra should be prepared to listen. Their success underpins Australia’s success.

Ms King’s slap down is a rare slip from a Cabinet minister in a Government which mostly says all the right things on mining, and has made a great show of its support in particular for the critical minerals and gas industries.

Perhaps her attack on BHP on Thursday was a case of Ms King finally saying the quiet part out loud.

But when you push past the platitudes, this Government’s commitment to the engine room of our economy all starts falling apart.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore