Miners fed up with renewables land grab put the issue on Labor’s productivity agenda

Resources companies want the most profitable project to prevail in a showdown with renewables players, who they say have been unfairly hoarding land access, while miners make the money that keeps the economy fed.

Wind turbines stretch across the horizon at dusk. Picture: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Resources companies will push for a profitability-based beauty pageant as a means to resolve land use conflicts with the developers of renewables projects as part of measures aimed at boosting the nation’s productivity.

Land use conflicts between the resources and renewables industries has emerged as a hot issue for the re-elected Albanese government as it looks at ways to revive flatlining productivity.

The influential Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) wants the government to consider introducing a “most profitable project wins” regime in the battle for land access.

AMEC raised the issue on behalf of its 500 member companies at roundtable discussions with federal resources minister Madeleine King in Perth on Thursday attended by most of the big players in mining and oil and gas.

Ms King hosted the talks to feed into Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ national productivity summit for business leaders pencilled in for later this year. A separate meeting was held for the critical minerals players.

Minister for Resources Madeleine King (in blue) at AMEC’s roundtable discussions in Perth on Thursday.

Resources companies raised the government’s industrial relations changes and what they maintain are unintended consequences detrimental to productivity, a frustration that has been aired before. Other contentious policy issues heard in the roundtables included native title, environmental reforms and restrictions on foreign investment.

AMEC chief executive Warren Pearce said land management topped longstanding concerns about delays in project approvals and government-induced red tape.

“What we want to see talked about at the productivity summit is how we manage land use,” he said.

“The established industries that have provided the foundational base for our economy are all heavy land users. The future industries we’re trying to attract in renewables and hydrogen are all big land users,” he said.

“We’re all in the same space, and this is not working out particularly well. The federal government and state governments need to work together to get a process that enables everyone to advance their projects up until a financial investment decision is made.

“This is so we don’t sterilise resources in the ground or make decisions that essentially mean we miss out on high value land use.”

Mr Pearce said some renewable players were guilty of a form of land banking for projects with questionable economics.

“From a productivity perspective if we’re on the same ground and only one person can use it, or only one person has access to it, and they don’t build it that means others have missed an opportunity. That’s happening all over the place,” he said.

“The renewables industry does a lot of it because they need lots of land, but they’re also building their equity pieces and their share value by saying they’ve got access to land when you don’t really know if they’re going to make a decision to go ahead. Our resources industry is very different to that.”

Mr Pearce’s blast adds to criticism from farmers in Victoria about renewables developers laying claim to paddocks and having transmission lines pushed through their properties.

Ms King confirmed that the issue of conflicting land use had been raised during Thursday’s roundtables.

“That’s a really important part of planning – how we don’t – to use his (Mr Pearce’s) language – sterilise land use entirely,” she said.

“He raises a good point, and that goes to the wider issue about making sure there’s a consistency between state and federal land use decisions, and state and federal approvals processes more generally.”

Ms King rejected claims companies had pushed the government to wind back its industrial relations changes like “same job, same pay” and helped open the door for re-unionisation of the iron ore industry.

“There were a few comments around ensuring that we monitor for unintended consequences, and that’s entirely fair enough,” she said.

“We know we have differences of opinion with industry on some parts of the industrial relations reforms. Equally, my impression from industry is they accept significant endorsement of those policies by Australian voters, and they’re just going to get on with the system they’ve got to work in.”

Ms King is in the process of organising a meeting with WA union leaders to hear their views on boosting productivity.

Asked if she would counsel union leaders not to go overboard with ambit claims about pay, rosters and other conditions, the minister said: “I don’t need to do that. I will ask the union leadership for how they think productivity can be improved. I’d point out that in the resources sector labour productivity is very high.”

Staunch critics of the IR changes BHP and Rio Tinto sent their government relations staff to the roundtable. Fortescue sent group manager of decarbonalisation delivery Sinead Booth and Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting was represented by its head of corporate finance Eu-Jin Teh.

Glencore head of global coal assets Earl Melamed and South32 chief operating officer for Australia Vanessa Torres also attended.

The roundtables were held at the federal government’s new ministerial offices in Perth, which sit in the same building as Chevron’s Australian headquarters. Chevron Australia managing director Balaji Krishnamurthy attended the meeting along Woodside vice-president Peter Metcalfe and executives from Santos, Beach Energy and INPEX.

Gold miners were invited but none were present.

In the critical minerals space, Lynas Rare Earths boss Amanda Lacaze, Iluka chief executive Tom O’Leary, PLS managing director Dale Henderson, IGO’s Ivan Vella and Liontown’s Tony Ottaviano assembled.

Ms King said the critical minerals group talked about the need for shared infrastructure and access to reliable, competitively price energy to boost productivity.

There were also calls for collaboration and an admission that it was not always up to the government to make sure productivity increased, she said.

Originally published as Miners fed up with renewables land grab put the issue on Labor’s productivity agenda