Albo’s jet-setting dills are welcomed home today by a mining punch about as strong as Albo himself:
Mining companies have warned that up to 33,000 jobs are at-risk from new taxes and multi-employer bargaining changes, with critical minerals, lithium, copper and other resources projects valued up to $77bn imperilled by increasing investment uncertainty and contagion.
Resources giants have told the Albanese government that projects underpinning its Powering Australia energy transformation plan will come under threat if miners are hit with new taxes, industrial relations rules, emissions and environmental restrictions.
Senior industry sources said a “slow down” in critical minerals, lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper projects would put the government’s 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by mid-century targets in jeopardy.
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable, backed by member companies including BHP, Rio Tinto, Whitehaven and Glencore, said a mining tax would “slow down Australia’s energy transformation”.
A few points:
- 33k jobs is roughly one month’s worth in the national economy.
- If $77bn in resources investment delivers a lousy 33k jobs then who cares.
- If energy prices aren’t lowered then a lot more manufacturing and consumption jobs than that will be lost. Hundreds of thousands as the RBA hikes more than it would like, property and consumption crash, industry is hollowed out, and a recession ensues.
- The Powering Australia plan is much larger in energy transformation terms than the above paltry figures. Commodities are a global market. If not invested here then it will be invested elsewhere and the cost will be the same.
- The lithium price is so crazy that we could tax it at 90% and the projects would go ahead with huge profits.
- Copper projects are not at risk because there is not much need for new copper in the energy transition. Recycling is going to add a lot more copper than markets think.
- The energy transition will happen regardless because renewables are by far the cheapest source of new power.
Basically, this “research” is horseshit. Not passing the laugh test horseshit. In fact, it is so weak that one wonders what’s happened to the Minerals Council. Perhaps feminising the subject was not such a good idea. Then again, not even Mitch Hooke could make this garbage fly.
Fix energy now and we’ll see a lot more jobs and growth than any fancifully lost dirt-digging jobs.
Even the readers of the number one mining propaganda outfit in Australia agree overwhelmingly:
Almost two in three surveyed readers of The Australian Financial Review believe the government should intervene and push down gas and coal prices temporarily, with 64 per cent saying such measures are warranted.
You don’t get two-thirds of folks agreeing that the world is round.
That’s how poor the policy and political judgement of Albo’s cowards has been.
