A new report from BHP this week called Recapturing Australia’s Competitiveness is a timely reminder of how important Australian mining is to our future given the challenges of climate change.
Meeting our net zero goals will “only be possible through the scaling up of mineral production”. BHP says that may mean creating up to 140 new copper mines, 60 new nickel mines, 50 new lithium mines and 17 new cobalt mines by 2030.
That certainly puts our challenges into perspective. As the report makes clear though, Australia has a great track record—$218B in annual export revenue last year, 1.1M associated jobs, $63B in taxes, and one of the highest GDPs per capita of any major country.
Mining can often seem like something that happens out of sight, but I was surprised to learn that over “17 million individual Australians own a part of the Australian mining sector directly or via their superannuation holdings.”
That means it’s already pretty important to most of us. That will only grow bigger of course as we electrify our homes and cars, turn to renewable energy and increasingly embed technology into all parts of our lives.
But the BHP report also carries an important warning. Boosting mining will need massive investment—BHP estimates an extra US$100B a year—and that requires a stable, streamlined investment & policy environment right across the country.
I’m pleased to see that BHP says this will mean industry and government must work together to achieve “a coordinated approach to infrastructure planning and investment” to make sure our critical metals like copper are mined as efficiently and sustainably as possible.
We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to set itself up for the oncoming commodities boom, but we have a lot of competitors. Let’s not let this slip though our fingers and reduce the potential wealth of our country for the next generation through short-term, non-collaborative thinking.
Cheers, John Fennell.
