Minerals Council scare marketing campaign: lies about jobs, funding

The mining trade is already pouring out lies in response to the federal government’s industrial relations adjustments, similar to it did in response to Labor’s mining tax over a decade in the past. Besides, this time the lies are much more absurd.

In reality it’s nearly a case of “come again, Mitch Hooke, all is forgiven”, if the standard of the newest scare marketing campaign from the Minerals Council is something to go by.

Dutifully written up by Information Corp stenographers, the mining trade’s argument in opposition to industrial relations reform centres on the declare “that 22,000 development jobs and greater than 11,000 ongoing jobs may very well be in danger” from “important minerals, lithium, copper and different assets tasks”.

“Extra lithium for batteries, extra copper for photo voltaic panels, and extra cobalt for electrical autos. No more uncertainty and danger that may merely ward off funding from our shores, at such a vital hour,” says Minerals Council head Tania Constable — or, as The Australian’s Geoff Chambers describes her, “Mr Constable”.

How the mighty have fallen — within the days of Mitch Hooke, the Minerals Council’s scare campaigns would have featured a whole bunch of hundreds of jobs and a whole bunch of billions in funding danger, sending overseas capital to flight. If 33,000 jobs is the most effective the Minerals Council can do, are they even attempting?

Discover that almost all of these jobs are in development — which is at the moment below huge strain with worth inflation and workforce shortages. Frankly, we may do with 22,000 extra development employees obtainable to work on hard-pressed main infrastructure tasks, and even in residential development. As for 11,000 jobs, that’s round 0.4% of the mining workforce.

You may see why the Minerals Council is terrified that industrial relations reform may spark an enormous surge in wages within the sector, although — in final week’s wage worth index knowledge for the September quarter, wages within the mining sector have been already exploding, with an annual progress determine of… um, 2.7%. Constable have to be fearful wages progress will hit a surprising 3%.

Now let’s get to the intense bit — the place the Minerals Council is blatantly mendacity concerning the danger to jobs and funding.

Australia is the world’s greatest lithium exporter, and since final 12 months, the worth of lithium has elevated practically sixfold. Lithium miner Pilbara Minerals went from by no means making a revenue to creating greater than half a billion {dollars}; one other miner, Allkem, noticed income develop 800% (not a typo) and make practically half a billion {dollars}. The trade predicts the lithium worth will stay round practically US$50,000 a tonne into subsequent 12 months.

Within the September quarter, gross sales from Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes mine in Western Australia — which has been producing lithium because the mid-Nineteen Eighties — totalled 338,000 tonnes of spodumene (the supply for lithium), which led to a quarterly gross sales income of $1.84 billion from the mine, a 112% leap from the June quarter. There was no gross sales income for a similar quarter of 2021-22. A crude annualising of that quarterly determine provides a income determine for the 12 months to June 2023 of greater than $7 billion from one mine for Talison.

Pilbara Minerals had an equally productive September quarter — simply greater than US$1 billion, which implies it’s heading for income of greater than $4 billion for the 12 months to subsequent June.

Meaning between Greenbushes and Pilbara Minerals, lithium may very well be producing product sales revenues approaching $12 billion by subsequent June, which in flip may very well be many of the export income forecast for the monetary 12 months or round $14 billion.

The assets division forecasts lithium to remain at practically US$50,000 a tonne into 2023 and can nonetheless be practically double 2021 costs in 2024. And it’s not simply lithium. “Metals central to the worldwide vitality transition (copper, nickel, lithium) are set to earn $33 billion in 2022–23, double what they earned in 2020–21,” authorities forecasts say.

“The transition to low-emission applied sciences will add considerably to the demand for non-ferrous exports over the outlook interval. Notably, lithium exports at the moment are forecast to rise by over 180% to $13.8 billion in 2022–23 however then drop to $12.9 billion in 2023–24, as costs ease. Lithium exports in 2021–22 have been nearly $5 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2020–21.”

And regardless of being namechecked within the Information Corp stenography, BHP — evidently untroubled by the commercial relations invoice — needs to spend A$9.6 billion to purchase smaller copper, gold and nickel miner OZ Minerals. That’s an enormous funding for an organization notionally able to flee the trade, and which already has its personal WA nickel enterprise.

The Minerals Council is significantly claiming that mining corporations are going to show their backs on the huge historic alternative of renewables expertise, and the billions that may movement from it, as a result of they could need to pay barely greater wages. You’d need to be a Information Corp journalist to imagine that.