KPMG estimates that if key workplace reforms advocated by AMMA were fully implemented, they could collectively support resource sector productivity growth of up to 5% and investment of up to 8%. This would grow national GDP by 2% and employment by 0.3%.

“In real numbers, this means Australia could have $30.9 billion more in GDP and an additional 36,000 jobs if modest workplace changes identified by the resource industry were enacted,” AMMA chief executive Steve Knott said at the Australian Oil and Gas Expo in Perth this morning.

“This research takes what we believe are sensible, modest changes to the workplace system and quantifies the significant benefits to our economy, employment and living standards.

“KPMG’s report should be a wake-up call to our politicians and the wider community that workplace relations reform is important for the prosperity and job opportunities of all Australians. We must have a national discussion about fixing the problems that beset the current system.”

The KPMG research report, Workplace relations and the competitiveness of the Australian resources sector, is released as the Productivity Commission on Friday takes submissions for its wide-ranging review of Australia’s workplace relations system.

AMMA’s comprehensive submission will present KPMG’s analysis, which Knott says “draws logical, clear links between AMMA’s recommended workplace relations reforms, the likely outcomes for labour productivity and investment in the resource industry, and the benefits to the nation as a whole if such reforms were enacted”

In building its quantitative analysis of changes in workplace relations, KPMG consulted a range of resource employers including AMMA members and found AMMA’s reform options could reduce the costs associated with project delays, unproductive operational practices, and ‘excessive’ increases in wages and conditions; reduce strike action on major resource projects; keep union officials off worksites; and reverse onus of proof that employers say encourages unmeritorious claims in the courts.

In addition to economic modelling of proposed workplace reforms that would put more power in the hands of employers KPMG explored the competitiveness of the Australian resource industry.

It found that between 2007 and 2012, Australia had gone from being one of the most competitive markets for coal production to being 66% more expensive than the global average with a cost increase of 189% in just five years.

Wages in the iron ore sector are 21% higher than the global average, while construction wages in the Australian resources sector have risen at 2.5 times the national average, twice as fast as Canada and three times as fast as the US.

It is 26-30% more expensive to produce LNG in Australia as it is in Canada and it is nearly 150% more expensive to staff the same vessel in Australia’s offshore resource industry compared to a European OECD economy. It is more than triple the cost to staff an Australian vessel compared to staffing a vessel with a crew from a southeast Asian nation.

“While detailing the competitive challenges facing our industry, KPMG’s report should create optimism about where our nation can go if we approach the Productivity Commission’s review as a genuine opportunity for fundamental workplace reform,” Knott said.

“The resource industry represents 10%, or $155 billion, of Australia’s GDP. Directly, it employs 2.3% of Australia’s workforce and up to 10% in flow-on effects and indirect employment.

“Given KPMG’s analysis found that workplace relations reform in the resource industry alone could lift real GDP by up to $30.9 billion and grow employment by up to 36,000 jobs, we must consider the significant national benefits if genuine reform was undertaken more widely.”