BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s head of operations has called on community members to highlight the impact of heavy coal royalties with their local MP, family, friends, neighbours and colleagues.
Mariette Bylsma (Pictured) told an event in Mackay at the weekend that BMA paid eight times more in taxes and royalties than it made in profit last financial year.
“Help share the message that fixing this issue isn’t just about coal – it’s about every business and every community that depends on it,” she said during her speech at the BMA CQ Rescue Gala.
BMA is the naming rights partner of the CQ Rescue service, which welcomed a second AW139 helicopter to its fleet this year and has been in the skies 758 times on missions since August last year.
While highlighting that work in her speech, Ms Bylsma said it would be remiss of her to not acknowledge the challenges facing the coal industry and the implications for such partnerships.
“Queensland’s coal industry is operating in a challenging cost environment. In addition to softening coal prices, Queensland has one of the highest coal royalty regimes in the world,” she said.
“This makes our state less competitive and less predictable for investment. These policy settings have real consequences.
“As you know, the Bowen Basin and all those communities connected to the mining industry are facing hardships as a result of the Queensland Government’s coal royalties and taxes and increasingly challenging market conditions. ”
She told the audience that BMA had an effective tax rate of 67 per cent.
The group operates the Goonyella Riverside, Broadmeadow, Peak Downs, Saraji and Caval Ridge coal mines in the Bowen Basin as well as the Hay Point Coal Terminal in Mackay, employing a total of 9500 people across the state.
When BHP released its full-year financial results in August, it warned it would consider pausing lower-margin parts of its Queensland coal business if low prices persisted amid the ongoing negative impacts of ‘extreme royalty rates’.
That comes against a backdrop of its long-standing position that it will not be investing in any further growth across the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance operations as a result of the royalty regime introduced under the previous State Government in 2022.