Australia’s sliding business competitiveness puts energy transition at risk: BHP
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: BHP’s Australia president Geraldine Slattery has warned a decline in Australia’s competitiveness puts its energy transition opportunities and ambitions at risk, increasing the urgency for a reduction to the corporate tax rate and red tape.
Without reform, Slattery said businesses and investors will increasingly look to overseas investment opportunities.
The context: Speaking at the Minerals Council of Australia’s Minerals Week event being held in parliament house, Slattery said Australia must strike the right balance in capturing the opportunity of rising demand for copper, iron ore, metallurgical coal, lithium, among others “driven by electrification, energy security and growth” with the costs of decarbonising operations.
“Every solar farm, electric vehicle, transmission line and data centre depends on [copper]. Global demand for copper is forecast to increase by around 70% by 2050,” Slattery said, highlighting South Australia as “the centre of that opportunity”.
However, she warned that “capturing this opportunity depends on investment decisions made now, and on whether Australia can compete for capital against other jurisdictions that are moving quickly”.
Slattery pointed to a recent study commissioned by the Business Council of Australia that found Australia’s competitiveness had slid to 21st place out of 42 countries in 2025, from 17th in 2019.
“In a tight global contest for capital, the middle of the table is where investment decisions start to drift elsewhere,” Slattery said.
She pointed to investment headwinds including “business taxation and the complexity and timeframes associated with regulation and approvals”, particularly for the energy sector.
“Energy is a system input. It shapes costs, enables technology and underpins productivity. The test for Australia is whether we can deliver energy that is affordable, reliable and secure, while keeping faith with our commitment to net zero,” she said.
Slattery also lamented that “decarbonising large industrial sectors depends on technologies that are not yet commercially viable at scale, rely on immature supply chains, or lack established markets”.
“In mining, diesel displacement in large-scale haulage and fugitive emissions from coal mining remain technically and commercially difficult to address at scale. Together, they sit at the heart of the sector’s decarbonisation challenge.”
Despite the challenges, she acknowledged the government’s commitment “not to change the fuel tax credit” provides certainty for long-term investment decisions as does coordinated planning with governments.
She also said reforms to the EPBC Act were an “important part of improving system performance”, while “engagement on the safeguard mechanism matters, when settings reflect technology readiness and phased investment”.
What they said: “Business taxation, regulatory complexity and the cumulative cost of compliance remain material headwinds for large, long-life investments,” Slattery said.
“These settings matter because capital is mobile, and it is not viable to both invest in the technologies and supply chains required to decarbonise, while being penalised with excessive taxation in parallel.”
The source: BHP speech
