BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery issues blunt warning at Melbourne Mining Club

A leading mining figure has delivered a dark speech warning that Australians will need to “do more, move faster and work harder” to maintain prosperity.

Australia no longer has the same “natural advantages” it enjoyed in earlier decades, mining giant BHP has warned, and Australians will need to “do more, move faster and work harder” to maintain and extend prosperity.

BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery issued the blunt warning in a speech to the Melbourne Mining Club on Thursday, arguing the country needed to reassess its policy settings to effectively compete on the new global “playing field”.

“Today we find ourselves in the energy transition – one of the great industrial shifts in history,” she said.

“All of us here know that shift will not occur without the minerals Australia provides.

“Amid this global economic realignment, Australia must avoid the trap of taking our history for granted.

“We must recognise that the playing field has shifted.

“Yes, the opportunity is great, but the stakes are even greater … because we all know that Australia does not have the same natural advantages as we do with our iron ore and coal.”

BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery said the country needed to reassess its policy settings. Picture: NewsWire / Ian Currie

Ms Slattery argued the country’s challenges went beyond its particular resource endowment.

“Let me offer a blunt assessment: Our access to skills and talent is under threat. Our investments in technology and innovation trails some of our biggest global competitors, and we are not keeping pace as an attractive place to invest.

“We must acknowledge this shift and respond, and we must be champions of enabling more competitive settings.

“We cannot change the rocks we have, but we can change the enablers and settings in their discovery, extraction and development.”

BHP, Australia’s second largest company with a market capitalisation of some $206bn, has campaigned ferociously against a sweep of new industrial relations and tax policies introduced by state and federal governments in recent years, including Same Job Same Pay legislation that seeks to equalise pay rates between labour hire workers and permanent employees in mining and other industries.

The mining giant has argued the policy adds costs without delivering productivity gains.

BHP is Australia’s second largest company with a market capitalisation of $206bn. Picture: NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

It has also hit out repeatedly at the Queensland government’s sudden introduction of new coal royalty tiers in 2022 that BHP says degrades the state’s investment regime and the ability of businesses to plan.

Ms Slattery’s speech also called for a “modernised” permitting system to keep Australia in line with “the changing nature of competition”.

“We are proud of the high standards the industry upholds in Australia but we need to be smarter and do this more efficiently. Time to market matters,” she said.

“In 2020, the Samuel Review found, on average, complex resource-sector projects can take over 1000 days to assess and approve. Inefficient regulation leads to project delays. Governments are figuring this out.

“The US introduced an Energy Permitting Reform Act this year and the incoming Trump administration is continuing the conversation about permitting reform.

“Canada has created a Federal Permitting Coordinator and amended its Impact Assessment Act to accelerate decisions.”

Ms Slattery warned that Australia now ranked 23rd in the Global Innovation Index, trailing Canada, the US, China and most of the EU, and its research and development investment as a share of GDP was slowing down.

“The AI boom is a mining boom too,” she said.

BHP mines coal at the Caval Ridge mine in Queensland. The company mines copper, coal, iron ore and nickel. Picture: BHP

“If we need any clearer reminder of the potential of AI, in the last year Microsoft and Nvidia joined Apple in the $US3 trillion club, as markets and societies began to grasp the power and potential for artificial intelligence to shape the future.”

Talent was also drying up, she said, as demographics shifted.

“On the supply side, the threat is growing,” Ms Slattery said.

“Nearly 50 per cent of the skilled engineering workforce globally will retire in the next decade, and we know that we do not have enough graduates in mining related fields to replace them.”

The commodities giant mines predominantly iron ore, copper, coal and nickel.

It suspended its nickel operations in Western Australia in July, citing a global oversupply of nickel for the temporary shutdown.

Ms Slattery’s speech comes a day after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported GDP growth of 0.8 per cent in the 12 months to September.

GDP per capita fell by 0.3 per cent, slumping for the seventh straight quarter, the ABS said.

Originally published as BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery issues blunt warning at Melbourne Mining Club