AMMA executive director Scott Barklamb said the federal government’s latest Resources and Energy Quarterly revising down the value forecast by 14% from 12 months ago, meant lower taxes and royalties than expected and further pressure on businesses.

“Just as employers are already having to trade on higher volumes to make money, it will be in the national interest to increase our share of global resource exports in a lower commodity price environment,” he said.

“Lowered export earnings forecasts underscore the need for our policy makers to take urgent action to improve Australia’s attractiveness as a destination for global resources investment.

“One key way to help increase investor confidence is to improve the laws governing employment agreements for greenfields projects that currently require employers to accede to union demands before a single person can be hired or a sod turned on a new project.

“The ‘veto power’ our existing laws give unions contributes to delays and high costs that are dragging down Australia’s reputation to deliver complex, multi-billion dollar resource projects on time and on budget.

“International investors are marking Australia down as a place to do business because they cannot rely on our industrial relations system to deliver reliable, timely and cost effective employment arrangements.”

Of course there are many in the union sector who would believe AMMA would use a blood moon as a reason to call for workplace reform. Oh wait, there was one of those this week.

But then the unions would also have to admit that they got a pretty sweet ride from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments that ran from 2007 to 2013.

In the coal sector it does not look like there is going to be any new developments in the immediate future given the global coal demand climate at the moment.

However, an uncertain industrial relations environment would make any new coal mine developments even less likely.

Barklamb said the Senate had been close to a breakthrough on some useful reforms to greenfield agreement making in September but they had not been passed.

The Productivity Commission issued some draft recommendations on workplace change including:

• a “life of construction” agreement option on top of a maximum five-year agreement length
• providing alternatives to dealmaking with unions where negotiations stall.