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Booming iron ore and coal exports are poised to save the economy from going backwards in the final three months of 2023, with public spending providing a further prop to growth.The most recent Australian ­Bureau of Statistics figures show iron ore sales jumped by 9.9 per cent in the quarter, and coal exports climbed by 5.3 per cent.

Last November in a speech to mining executives, Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, urged more miners to get into politics and remove environmental regulations. Rinehart has a long record of climate scepticism and opposition to renewable energy. Last December she made the extraordinary claim that a third of Australia’s agricultural land could be taken over by wind and solar projects. (The Clean Energy Council notes that replacing all of Australia’s coal-fired power stations with solar farms would take less than 0.016 per cent of the country’s land.) Rinehart’s source was the Institute for Public Affairs, an organisation to which she has reportedly contributed millions of dollars and which has a long record of propagandising against renewable energy.

Australia is in the middle of a crushing cost-of-living crisis. The most effective way out of it is to increase productivity. Improving productivity puts downward pressure on prices, but it does so without the financial pain associated with the only other major inflation-busting lever — punishing interest rate hikes. Given that, the Government should be throwing the kitchen sink at getting its policy settings right. Instead, Labor seems intent on tying up business in more and more red tape.

Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm told the Financial Times on Wednesday that the company’s board has given the green light to the Simandou mining project in West Africa. Stausholm said the company aims to commence iron ore production from the $20 billion development as early as 2025. “The board yesterday approved the largest mining project in the world,” Stausholm told the Financial Times.

Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm says the Albanese government’s industrial relations reforms could reignite the workplace tensions of the 1980s as he flagged a further rise in the cost of producing Australian iron ore. The continued cost escalation in the Pilbara comes at a time when Mr Stausholm said inflationary pressures were easing in many other parts of the world. Mr Stausholm warned the government’s embrace of multi-employer workplace agreements and its same job, same pay labour hire changes were causing concerns.

The project has been dubbed the “Pilbara killer” because Rio’s iron ore foray in Africa could spell long-term trouble for the Pilbara region’s mantle as the world’s premier producer of the steel-making input. It comes as the sprawling Pilbara iron ore operations buoyed Rio Tinto’s full-year result, but a stale showing across its basket of other commodities weighed on the mining giant’s bottom line. On Tuesday the military junta — led by Mamady Doumbouya, pictured, who seized control of Guinea in 2021 — dissolved the country’s government, sealed the borders and stripped government ministers of their passports, according to local media reports.

Hancock chief executive Garry Korte said the current regime of “overcomplicated, duplicative regulation and red tape” has created an environment where Australia is becoming increasingly uncompetitive with overseas markets. “Australia does not set international commodity prices, it is a price taker. It is important that government implement policies to enable Australia to be cost competitive in the long term or we risk losing a significant part of our critical industry,” he said. “We are already seeing significant closures in the nickel industry, which will get much worse if not strongly addressed. “It’s insightful that productivity has all but been absent from recent legislative changes – this topic should be front and centre of any debate about changes needed to underpin long term competitiveness.” Mr Korte said “if Australia is serious” about its critical minerals ambitions and building downstream processing facilities both levels of government need to provide support for gas as a low-cost base load energy source. “Government should consider policy changes that encourage additional gas being brought to market quickly and efficiently.”

15 February 2024.

It is another week in which WA businesses are coming to terms with another wave of changes to industrial relations laws drafted by people who do not really understand how a resources-focused economy works. It will be interesting to see how a “right to disconnect” works in a remote mining camp when you want to check on the welfare or fitness for work of a worker who is residing in premises operated by you during their non-working time.

Australia is already beginning to see the damage flowing from previous industrial relations changes, where businesses are opting to make investments outside of Australia, and the first mining companies are now facing being roped into multi-employer bargaining.

Australia’s most powerful energy producers have lashed spurious legal claims and environmental hold-ups, warning contracts needed to dodge a gas shortfall on the east coast are under threat due to delays developing more than $10bn in new projects.Queensland’s Senex Energy, half-owned by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, said it may struggle to meet supply deals with ­EnergyAustralia, manufacturing giant BlueScope and building products maker CSR. Contracts with the big gas users from Senex’s Atlas expansion begin in 2026, but ongoing delays threaten the timetable. “It takes a very long time to get gas out of the ground from a standing start,” said Senex chief executive Ian Davies. The longer this drags on, the more those contracts are at risk.”

It’s anticipated that will increase with the new direct flight offering as MinRes seeks to attract skilled workers nationwide in a tight labour market. MinRes is actively recruiting for hundreds of additional roles, including mobile plant operators, project engineers, earthworks supervisors, MC drivers and medics. MinRes boasts it is setting a new standard for the fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) experience, which includes new accommodation resorts and industry-leading food offerings.