Minerals Council postpones flagship event amid tensions with Albanese government

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Tania Constable, CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia at the Australian Minerals Industry Parliamentary Dinner in the Great Hall at Parliament House in Canberra in 2024. Jane Dempster/The Australian.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

The mining industry’s big Canberra bash won’t go ahead this year – a sign of tensions between the industry and Anthony Albanese’s government, or simply a scheduling problem?

The Mineral Council of Australia’s annual Minerals Week in Canberra is one of the biggest events on the lobby group’s calendar.

The talkfest – kicked off by a black-tie bash in Parliament’s Great Hall featuring a speech from the Prime Minister of the day – is a chance for mining CEOs to walk the halls of parliament, drop in to directly lobby ministers, and have a few quiet beers on the sidelines of worthy policy discussions.

But Margin Call hears the Minerals Council has pulled stumps on this year’s event, set for early September.

On the face of it the MCA simply made a bad bet on the dates of this year’s parliamentary sitting weeks, picking September 8 as the launch date for this year’s shindig.

Given parliament usually sits in the first two weeks of the month, that’s normally pretty safe.

But not this year. The MCA’s plans for the second week of September were left high and dry after Albo elected to run a short sitting schedule for the rest of 2025, including two weeks in July and then another two running from the last week of August.

While we wouldn’t suggest that planning was deliberate, Margin Call can’t imagine that too many tears will have been shed in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet over the MCA’s problem, if they noticed it.

Remember that Albo was comprehensively roughed up at last year’s event, attacked from the podium by Minerals Council boss Tania Constable before delivering his own speech to the annual dinner.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable. Picture: Colin Murty

To a chorus of cheers from the industry, Constable directly blamed Albanese for triggering conflict with the industry by introducing “reckless” industrial relations changes and more environmental legislation, saying Labor risked a return to the mining tax wars between the big resources companies and the Gillard government.

Relations haven’t been helped by Labor perceptions that the MCA picked Peter Dutton’s side during the federal election campaign. Constable renewed her attack on Albanese in Perth in March in the wake of the federal budget, saying the Prime Minister delivered a budget to “secure his own future”, rather than one for Australia’s future.

The MCA were vocal supporters of Dutton’s signature nuclear energy policy, at least one MCA staffer was seconded to the Liberal campaign HQ for the duration of the campaign, and the industry lobby group also ran “mining keeps the lights on” billboard ads in key inner-city seats targeted by the Liberals across the country.

Minister for Resources Madeleine King and MCA CEO Tania Constable at the Australian Minerals Industry Parliamentary Dinner in the Great Hall at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

Clearly not something forgotten by Albo who, in an interview with the ABC shortly after the May election, pointedly left the MCA off a list of “sensible” industry groups he’d been happy to hear from over the government’s plans to revamp environmental approval laws.

WA’s WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy got a mention, as did Rio Tinto and BHP. But not mining’s national peak lobby group.

Concerns about the relationship forced MCA chairman Andrew Michelmore out in public last month to declare the board’s support for Constable. Never a great sign.

The MCA will now be forced to push its annual Canberra shindig off until March – open weeks in the diary of a major mining CEO aren’t that easy to find.

Enough time to mend a few fences, perhaps.

Margin Call is told that work is already underway among Albo’s new ministry, with Environment Minister Murray Watt, Resources Minister Madeleine King and assistant regional development minister Anthony Chisholm all happy to meet up with the MCA for a quick chat about the government’s agenda in recent times.