The wives claim their communities are being decimated by fly-in, fly-out labour arrangements but their request for Kloppers to visit was turned down.

Kloppers is quoted as saying on ABC radio that the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance already spent $100 million in community facilities in central Queensland towns.

The company is also stuck in a protracted dispute with unions over enterprise agreements at its central Queensland mines.

Leslie West from Emerald wants Kloppers to know about the struggles to pay rent and the cost of living in mining towns.

“It's extremely difficult for people to get rental accommodation and when they can it's in Emerald [and] up to $800 to $1000 a week rent,” she told the ABC.

“As a coal miner's wife to accommodate that, we couldn't afford to rent under that circumstance and I don't know how normal people can come to Emerald to set up a life, to work at the local grocery store – that's where we are missing out.”

This week, BMA is meeting with union representatives at seven of its Bowen Basin mines in a bid to end the protracted negotiations over an enterprise agreement before the Christmas holiday season.

The negotiations, which have been stalemated amid claims of bad faith on both sides, have grown increasingly acrimonious, with protected industrial action by workers and claims by BMA that employees want a quick resolution to the dispute.

“Employees are providing the company with ongoing feedback that they are frustrated with the speed of negotiations and want more meetings so that an agreement can be finalised as soon as possible,” a BHP spokesperson told ILN.

Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union of Queensland district president Stephen Smyth told ILN the current protected industrial action continued to be endorsed by over 90% of the union’s members because they “don’t believe BHP is serious in wanting to address their claims in relation to entitlements and conditions”

Earlier this year, Kloppers said BHP Billiton was suffering a “lag” effect of the commodity boom, which led to costs for labour and contractors contributing to $US878 million extra in costs in the last financial year.

“For us, there are two aspects that we always emphasise when we talk about total labour productivity, or total cost per unit,” Kloppers said.

“One is what does it cost for a unit of labour [and] the second item is, what are you able to produce out of the unit of labour?

“So what we have seen, particularly on the capital side in Australia, is that we have had negative impacts, or the industry has had negative impacts, on both those elements.

“So labour has become more expensive and unbalanced. It has become less efficient.

“Again, that’s why the company is on the record as saying an ongoing focus on productivity, which is the combination of the unit cost and the unit efficiency, is a very important thing.”