More red tape for resource projects

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has sought to shore up her leadership by giving in to union demands to force big resources projects to offer locally thousands of jobs earmarked for foreign guest workers, The Australian Financial Review reports.

Facing renewed signs that some supporters were re-evaluating her performance, Gillard agreed to union demands for an online “jobs board” to advertise explicitly for Australian workers.

Gillard made the changes after an outcry from union leaders over an enterprise migration agreement that will see 1700 overseas workers, including scaffolders, riggers and electricians, brought to Gina Rinehart’s $6.5 billion Roy Hill iron ore project in north Western Australia.

“My concern here, and the concern of the Labor government, is always to put Australian jobs first,” the Prime Minister said.

Mining boom hurt radio telescope bid

High labour costs caused by the mining boom may have lost Australia the right to host one of the biggest science projects in history – the €1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) square kilometre array radio ­telescope, The Australian Financial Review reports.

The project was originally meant to be based in a single area and involve thousands of antennae working as one to become the most powerful radio telescope on Earth. It would be capable of scanning distant planets while looking back in time to study the birth of the universe.

But despite Australia’s world-leading expertise in radio astronomy, the telescope’s board decided in Amsterdam on Friday that South Africa would host most of the dishes while an Australian and New Zealand consortium gained funding for a smaller subset of antennae and other technology.

The project is expected to attract substantial investment in Australia and create jobs in the manufacturing, IT and renewable energy sectors.

Qantas sees future in Asia FIFO mine staff

Qantas is looking at the potential of international services catering to fly-in, fly-out workers from Asia, with Qantas chief Alan Joyce vowing to move quickly if mining companies manage to get the politically explosive issue through Canberra, The Australian reports .

FIFO providers have been aware for some time that labour shortages make flying in workers from Asia attractive to miners, but have acknowledged the politically fraught nature of the issue.

Lower investment may hit resource-sector growth

This week's capital investment report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is likely to show a further increase in planned resource investment, capturing the firm go-ahead given earlier this year to the $36 billion Ichthys LNG project in the Browse Basin, The Australian reports.

However, the shift lower in prices is likely to cause the deferral of new projects.

Although the level of investment will remain very high by historical standards, it is a shift that could result in investment becoming a drag on economic growth.

This would be a dramatic reversal as investment has been the biggest source of growth in the economy. In some forecasts, it is almost the only source of growth.

The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics survey of resource projects last week shows that 25 of the 102 projects that were under construction in November last year have been completed in the past six months.