Minerals Council of Australia – a wealthy lobby on behalf of foreign corporations
- Major members of the MCA are majority foreign-owned (BHP and Rio 70 per cent plus) and Glencore and Peabody owned in Switzerland and the US respectively. Therefore this is an organisation which effectively represents overseas interests.
The Minerals Council, coal and the half a billion spent by the resources lobby by Michael West | Oct 2, 2017 There is no peak body in the country which conducts its business as belligerently, and its proponents would say as successfully, as the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA).
Flush with funding thanks to the contributions of its multinational mining company members such as BHP, Rio and Swiss-owned coal giant Glencore, the miners’ peak body can raise a campaign warchest at a moment’s notice. And it is uncompromising, often venomous, in its rhetoric.
In 2010, the MCA managed to oust a sitting prime minister, Kevin Rudd, from office with a $22 million advertising blitz against the mining tax.
Earlier this year in the Western Australian state elections, the leader of the National Party, Brendon Grylls, lost his seat after the mining lobby campaigned against his proposal for higher taxes on iron ore producers.
Meanwhile, Rio Tinto booked a net profit of $6 billion profit for 2016, while BHP handed down a first-half profit of $4.2 billion.
An investigation of the financial statements of the MCA shows the not-for-profit association has booked revenues of more than $200 million over the past 11 years. Revenues peaked at $35 million, $32 million and $37 million in 2010, 2011 and 2012 when the group was busy fighting the mining tax, the carbon tax and the Renewable Energy Target.
This is but a fraction of the story however. Research by CoalWire editor Bob Burton, who has been studying the minerals lobby for more than a decade, has found the funding of MCA’s state satellites and the oil & gas peak body: the Australian Coal Association (ACA), NSW Minerals Council, Queensland Resources Council (QRC) and Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), is $541 million over the past 11 years.
That’s $37 million for the Australian Coal Association (wrapped into the MCA in 2013), $77 million for the NSW Minerals Council, $203.6 million for the MCA itself, $139 million for APPEA and $85 million for the QRC.
Three things to consider here:
- Major members of the MCA are majority foreign-owned (BHP and Rio 70 per cent plus) and Glencore and Peabody owned in Switzerland and the US respectively. Therefore this is an organisation which effectively represents overseas interests.
- Almost all large members have in-house PR and government relations departments to complement their external capabilities.
- Many of the major resources companies who are members of the MCA and APPEA are also members of other lobby groups such as the Corporate Tax Association and the Business Council of Australia.
Including the individual lobbying efforts of the big miners themselves, we are looking at more than half a billion dollars in hard, tax-free cash over the past decade pushing for lower taxes and deregulation of the workforce while undermining climate science and fighting environmental groups.
In a corporate sense, the MCA’s state affiliates enjoy differing relationships with the mothership but when it comes to campaigning – whether supporting taxpayer subsidies for Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine, boosting new coal-fired power stations in Queensland, a brown coal plant in Victoria, or protesting the shut-down of AGL’s Liddell coal plant in NSW – their efforts are united.
It is reasonable to expect an advocacy body to cherry-pick facts to suit its corporate agenda but MCA’s research is often skewed to the point of deception……….
Besides the immense financial muscle of the resources lobby, there is the matter of revolving doors, the traffic in human capital between industry and politics which delivers a less measurable but equally potent source of influence.
Two notable examples concerning the MCA: one, Federal Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield recently appointed MCA chair Vanessa Guthrie to the board of the ABC despite a dearth of media experience and, two, former MCA executive Sid Marris was recently appointed climate advisor to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull…………..https://www.michaelwest.com.au/the-minerals-council-coal-and-the-half-a-billion-spent-by-the-resources-lobby/
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