News

Mining giant Rio Tinto has join BHP in savaging the Federal Government’s proposed shake-up of Australia’s industrial relations laws, describing the controversial “Same Job, Same Pay” legislation as an “over-reach”.“Not only does such application risk undermining arrangements agreed to between employees and employers in those businesses, but, for mining, it threatens productive models of service delivery that are central to attracting investment in Australia.” “Our experience is that arrangements tailored for individual business help drive productivity growth,” Rio said.

More than half said they would stop hiring casuals if the changes came into effect, while 36 per cent said they would shed staff. Stagnating productivity is a serious threat to Australia’s economic prosperity. Australia can not afford to sit back and expect the riches to flow. Our politicians need to get the policy settings right to encourage investment, not dampen it. Because a prosperous Australian economy will make things better — and fairer — for all.

“(It) will have the effect of not only increasing the cost of OS, it will also practically remove the flexibility in terms of being able to deploy OS across sites, thus impairing a key reason for OS’ existence,” BHP said. “As a result of the Government’s legislation, BHP’s continued FutureFit investment, and the opportunities it is providing to a new wave of Australians to enter the resour es industry, may become unfeasible.” Other resources giants, including Hancock Prospecting and Lynas Rare Earths, have also voiced concerns about the Bill, arguing the changes could stymie investment into Australia’s looming critical minerals boom.

Kevin Gallagher predicts Australian policymakers will shift their viewpoint further towards that of the United States and the United Kingdom and realise that gas will be central in a smooth and sensible transition to a lower carbon economy, and still be needed after that. But demonising gas as Australian policymakers are doing will not help, he said. “I’m not sure the world can leave fossil fuels behind,” Mr Gallagher told The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit on Monday.

“Mrs Rinehart … is the single biggest financial contributor to the sport of swimming across the country and most deserving to be inducted as a Life Member to our sport here in WA,” said Darren Michael, President of Swimming WA. “As Patron, not only has she enthusiastically supported our WA swimmers here, across Australia and most recently internationally in Japan — where Australia presented the best international team ever
“She is a role model for our hardworking swimmers to achieve excellence.

But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.

5 October 2023.

WA’s peak resources body has warned Labor’s latest round of industrial relations reforms would put jobs at risk and increase the union power on worksites. In a submission to a Senate probe into the Closing Loopholes Bill, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CME) argued the reforms would put an end to the resource sector’s use of service contracting and damage existing supply chain frameworks. Minerals Council chief executive Tania Constable fronted the inquiry on Tuesday, when she argued the viability of WA’s resource sector would be damaged due to the impact it would have in attracting overseas investment.

Stronger than expected iron ore prices have helped lift the forecast for Australia’s resources and energy exports by $10 billion this financial year, despite a deteriorating global steel demand outlook. Commodity export earnings are tipped to fall from last year’s record $467b to $400b in 2023-24 and $352b by 2024-25, according to the latest Federal Government data released late on Monday. Minister for Resources Madeleine King said the lower earnings reflected a return to more normal prices after supply was constrained by the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, flooding in Australia and Indonesia and COVID-related workforce problems.

The Federal Government’s planned industrial relations changes are a “disastrous rewriting” of labour laws that will trigger the collapse of small businesses, the peak mining body is warning. The Minerals Council is urging the Government to dump the “fundamentally flawed” legislation which it claims will harm the economy — in particular the mining sector — and add to costof-living pressures on families. The lobby group’s boss, Tania Constable, will issue the warning when the Federal parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s “closing loopholes” legislation holds its first public hearing on Tuesday, in Sydney.

The proposed shake-up to Australia’s workplace laws is “fundamentally flawed” and risks roping in “millions of Australian workers”, the mining lobby has claimed. Ahead of Senate hearings into the government’s second tranche of industrial relations changes, the peak resources sector body, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), condemned the reforms, arguing they would inflict “immense harm” on the Australian economy. “At a time when Australia could be at forefront of delivering a low emission future the government is proposing to introduce a massive impediment and roadblock on the opportunity,” she will say. “Rather than building a new innovative society for the future, Australian businesses will be spending their days studying law books and appearing in court trying to work out whether we can even start.”