Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA plans to fight the ALP’s planned ‘nature-positive’ laws

The federal government has made a powerful enemy for itself in the west after the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA said it would fight Labor’s push for so-called nature-positive laws.

The CME represents companies which contribute 20 per cent of Australia’s corporate income tax and pay wages almost 60 per cent higher than the national average.

Western Australia’s powerful resources industry has issued a massive rebuke of the Albanese government’s green agenda and industrial relations policies in the countdown to the federal election.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA, whose members include BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue, Glencore, Newmont, Woodside Energy and Chevron, is preparing to go to war with the government over renewed efforts pass so-called nature-positive laws in one of the last parliamentary sitting weeks before the federal election.

Labor’s move is at odds with the CME’s pre-budget submission and election policy wish list due for release on Friday.

“The reality is Australia is becoming a more difficult place to do business at precisely the time we can least afford to be putting up roadblocks to new projects,” CME acting chief executive Adrienne LaBombard said.

“An onerous new industrial relations regime, uncertainty over the future of nature-positive laws and persistent challenges navigating complex and duplicative regulatory processes are all dragging down confidence.”

The CME said that, instead of trying to rush through half-baked nature-positive legislation, Labor should look to help the resources industry by focusing on laws on production tax credits for downstream processing of critical minerals and hydrogen production.

The lobby group – representing companies that contribute about 20 per cent of Australia’s corporate income tax and pay wages almost 60 per cent higher than the national average – also wants “productivity-crushing” industrial relations changes scrapped amid concerns about high costs in the industry and competition emerging in other jurisdictions.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek says she’s working with “all parties”. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Despite claims from Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek that she was working with “all parties” to pass nature-positive legislation that would establish a new federal environment watchdog, the CME said it did not support the bills introduced to parliament last year without adequate consultation.

The nature-positive legislation has been slated for debate next week in a draft Senate program, sending shockwaves through mining companies, which feel betrayed by Labor after assurances late last year that Anthony Albanese had killed off a deal between Labor and the Greens to pass the laws.

“We don’t support the legislation as tabled,” Ms LaBombard said. “We’ve been asking for amendments to the bills to be made, and we continue to feel that as tabled they don’t deliver on the objectives that were part of the ­nature-positive plan, which we do support and which were to deliver reform that’s better for the environment and better for business,” Ms LaBombard added.

“In the absence of the broader reform, what’s before us in the Senate is essentially the creation of a new entity at a national level that duplicates what happens already at a state level.

“There’s nothing in there that enables a bilateral approval process, which has long been a feature of our advocacy and a priority for our members.”

The warning on further duplication in the approval process comes with BHP, Glencore, Woodside, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and other major resources players highlighting Australia’s slide down the rankings as an investment jurisdiction.

Rio, whose iron ore boss, Simon Trott is president of the CME, has noted a 12-18 month blowout in mining approval times in WA since 2018, with the average environmental approval time stretching beyond four years.

Ms LaBombard said the industry needed a back-to-basics approach that prioritised lowering costs and accelerating project ­assessments.

The CME said its pre-budget submission-cum-election manifesto had 90 recommendations to “reverse years of falling productivity and attract the significant investment required to maintain Australia’s standing as a resources powerhouse”.

Ms LaBombard said industry confidence had been rocked by a wave of damaging legislative changes and regulatory decisions coinciding with falling commodity prices and increasingly fierce competition for international capital.

“While countries all over the world are jockeying for investment in resources vital to decarbonise the planet, plans for growth in WA have given way to fears for survival,” Ms LaBombard said.

“Streamlining end-to-end ­approval processes should be the highest priority for the Australian government to unlock investment in transformational projects, ­regardless of industry.” On industrial relations, the CME recommends unwinding the “single interest” stream of multi-employer bargaining and the ability for unions to initiate bar­gaining without demonstrating majority employee support.

The IR changes have allowed unions to gain a foothold in BHP’s iron ore operations in the Pilbara after decades of industrial peace while they were sidelined.

BHP is also caught up in the nation’s first contested same job, same pay application in the Fair Work Commission case involving labour hire workers employed at its Peak Downs, Saraji and Goonyella Riverside coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.

“We’re starting to see some of the negative impacts play out with increased industrial activity, bargaining activity, and some of the matters that are before the Fair Work Commission,” Ms LaBombard said.

“Clearly there’s going to be some impacts on business.”

The CME also pushes the case for tax credits in critical minerals and hydrogen, and for that support to be extended to green iron projects to help safeguard the ­future of the iron ore industry.

The Coalition remains opposed to the tax credits, and the Minerals Council of Australia has also expressed misgivings around “community benefit” requirements attached to eligibility.

Originally published as Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA plans to fight the ALP’s planned ‘nature-positive’ laws