The long-present threat of highly damaging action by militant unions in Western Australia affecting Australia's world-class minerals industry is now real.
The resolution by the Electrical Trades Union and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to inflict an unlimited number of stoppages at Port Hedland is an attack on productivity at one of Australia's most economically significant ports, which accounts for over 60 per cent of Australia's iron ore exports.
This return to industrial disruption weakens our national resilience, erodes our reputation as a reliable supplier and threatens the royalty and company tax flows that fund vital government services like police, hospitals and Medicare.
Mining is Australia's most productive industry in large part because of alignment of interests between investors, workers and companies.
Today, this mutually beneficial workplace harmony is being threatened in the Pilbara iron ore sector.
The Pilbara's cooperative workplace model has delivered the highest wages of any industry, world-leading productivity and secure jobs through modern workplace arrangements.
Rising disruption and escalating right of entry activity undermine the productivity and reliability that have defined the Pilbara region for more than three decades.
Sustainable wages that keep pace with cost of living pressures depend on maintaining a globally competitive industry - not on a return to industrial conflict.
