A host of Australia’s biggest industrial names are appealing for government aid as high energy prices threaten to force them out of business, in a test for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s new Labor government and its relations with business.
Some Australian metals smelters have hit a crisis point over the past year, due to high power bills and volatile commodity prices, with thousands of workers’ jobs at risk.
The latest alarm has been sounded by UK-listed miner Glencore, which has operations in Mount Isa, a historic mining town in Queensland. “A combination of unprecedented smelting market conditions, high costs like energy, gas and labour, and a shortage of copper concentrates is currently making the Mount Isa copper smelter unviable,” Glencore said in a statement on Friday.