Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I'd like to start by echoing Sally's respects to the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we meet, and indeed, to the Traditional Owners of the many lands on which BHP operates.

I acknowledge His Excellency Vitaliano Gallardo, Ambassador of Peru to Australia; Consul-General of Chile, Mrs Nasly Bernal, and distinguished guests.

I would also like to acknowledge Melbourne Mining Club Chair, Sally Cox, Co-Patrons Leigh Clifford and Hugh Morgan, and the Committee - I congratulate you on another terrific year.

A special shout out as well to Gavin Collery, for your very admirable contribution over the past 23 years. And, of course, a big thank you to everyone in the room for supporting the Melbourne Mining Club.

I'm incredibly proud to be part of this great industry. And - as you heard in the introduction – I'm also a big fan of the AFLW.

So, I was thrilled to attend their annual W awards last week with Tiah Toth and Zoe Wakfer.

In case you're not an AFLW fan, Tiah is a former player for the Fremantle Dockers, Zoe is a current player for the West Coast Eagles - and both are members of team BHP.

After the event, I thought about what the resources sector could learn from the AFLW.

Since launching in 2017, the competition has grown from eight to eighteen teams and tripled the number of games played in a season. And even with all that, the AFLW is still hungry and still wants to keep growing.

I thought about this - that hunger to grow, the approach to partnerships, the focus on collective enterprise.

It's these same ingredients that have enabled our resources sector to succeed for generations.

Over many decades, we have enjoyed a competitive advantage based on Australia's natural resources, our deep mining experience, and our ability to develop at scale.

Through economic cycles, we have proven the enduring value of our industry. We have shown resilience as the external environment shifts. We have demonstrated how indispensable we are to Australia's prosperity.

Consider this: As a sector we have paid over $350 billion in company tax and royalties in the past 10 years. That's basically the same as paying for ten years of Medicare.

So, where to from here?

Today we find ourselves in the energy transition – one of the great industrial shifts in history. All of us here know that shift will not occur without the minerals Australia provides.

Amid this global economic realignment, Australia must avoid the trap of taking our history for granted. We must recognise that the playing field has shifted.

Yes, the opportunity is great, but the stakes are even greater.

Today, I want to talk to you about the opportunity for our sector and Australia to embrace a more competitive mindset. One that relentlessly pursues a better future.

A shared mindset which holds every policy debate and reform proposal up to the light and asks: does this make Australia more competitive?

Because we all know that Australia does not have the same natural advantages as we do with our iron ore and coal.

And our challenges go beyond the nature of our resources.

Let me offer a blunt assessment:

• Our access to skills and talent is under threat.
• Our investments in technology and innovation trails some of our biggest global competitors.
• And we are not keeping pace as an attractive place to invest.

While this won't be news to any of you, we must acknowledge this shift and respond. And we must be champions of enabling more competitive settings.

We cannot change the rocks we have, but we can change the enablers and settings in their discovery, extraction and development.

If the sector, government and investors work together, the opportunity is immense and we can truly compete and succeed.

How do we do this in practical terms?

• One – by building a workforce with the right skills;
• Two – by embracing the technology and innovation that will shape the future; and
• Three - by championing a policy of competitiveness.

Building a workforce with the right skills

Let's start with building the skills of our people.

The demographics of the Australian mining industry are rapidly changing. The sector is facing structural challenges in skilled labour sufficiency.

On the supply side, the threat is growing. Nearly 50 per cent of the skilled engineering workforce globally will retire in the next decade. And we know that we do not have enough graduates in mining related fields to replace them.

This is not a question of reward. Australian mining not only provides the highest paid jobs of all sectors domestically, but Australian mining jobs are higher paid than in Canada and the US.

Part of the solution lies in expanding Australia's workforce participation - and this highlights the fundamental importance of the entire industry's work to build a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

As you will know, BHP has progressively increased gender diversity. Women now make up over 37% of our employee workforce globally. A figure that's more than doubled since we set our gender balance aspiration back in 2016.

This has not happened by chance. It has taken investment in education and training pathways, policies to level the playing field in equity and caring responsibilities, working with regional communities to solve childcare availability, and continued conviction in making our culture more inclusive.

We all have a role to play here, and the Government's efforts to expand fee free TAFE are commendable.

I also am heartened by the table of students who the Melbourne Mining Club are hosting today. I am certain that among you are the future leaders of our industry and I look forward to meeting you all.

For our part, in 2020, we launched the BHP FutureFit academies in Perth and Mackay. To date, more than 1300 people have benefited from this initiative with guaranteed jobs on completion of training.

This is Australia's next wave of mining technicians and tradespeople, and most of them are new to industry, female or Indigenous.

Continuing to bring these new talent sources into our workforces must be treated as a national competitiveness policy.

Embracing technology and innovation

Now, let us turn to technology... The race is on to find and develop mineral deposits around the globe.

In this context, the Federal Government's commitment of over half a billion dollars through Geoscience Australia to survey Australia's critical minerals resource is timely and welcome.

There is, I believe, a shared recognition that in mining, next generation technologies will make our exploration, development and operations safer, more sustainable and more productive.

And, on that, I do note many the partners in this room who are doing just that – including renewable energy, ESF steelmaking research and decarbonisation.

But how well is Australia positioned overall?

• Australia currently ranks 23rd in the Global Innovation Index, trailing Canada, the US, China and much of the EU.
• Australia is ranked 20th in the world in our readiness to adopt and explore digital technologies.
• And while R&D investment as a share of GDP is growing rapidly across the OECD, in Australia it is slowing down.

And I hope the Government's R&D review, announced this week and led by Robyn Denholm, will find ways to reinvigorate our R&D progress.

The AI boom is a mining boom too.

If we need any clearer reminder of the potential of AI, in the last year Microsoft and Nvidia joined Apple in the $3 trillion club, as markets and societies began to grasp the power and potential for artificial intelligence to shape the future.

Our industry can and should provide the leadership in technology and AI that will improve Australia's competitiveness.

A policy of competitiveness

Finally, we must champion a more competitive Australia through our policy settings in the way we grant permits, regulate mining, and think about risk.

It starts with streamlining permitting – making it easier to deliver major projects.

We are proud of the high standards the industry upholds in Australia, but we need to be smarter and do this more efficiently. Time to market matters.

In 2020, the Samuel Review found on average, complex resource-sector projects can take over 1000 days to assess and approve.

Of course, inefficient regulation leads to project delays. Governments are figuring this out.

The US introduced an Energy Permitting Reform Act this year, and the incoming Trump administration is continuing the conversation about permitting reform.

Canada has created a Federal Permitting Coordinator and amended its Impact Assessment Act to accelerate decisions.

In Chile, the need for a better permitting system is now recognised across the Congress, and the Government has made it a focus of its legislative agenda.

For Australia the principles should be clear: put in place a risk-based permitting system that ensures processing timelines are certain and outcomes are reliable.

In short, we must modernise our permitting system in line with the changing nature of competition.

Today I've focussed on permitting, but of course I want to reiterate that tax settings are equally as relevant, as are labour laws.

It remains our view that the industrial relations changes of the past two years will raise costs, reduce productivity and take us backwards in our ability to compete globally.

Conclusion

While this is my first time at the Melbourne Mining Club it's also the last meeting of the year.

So, to conclude I want to acknowledge and thank all of you for another year of bringing new skills, thinking and technology to our industry, making it a better place for our people and our communities.

I'm proud to work in our industry. All of us this room have seen, first-hand, the difference it makes.

We are doing great things - but I believe, and I hope I have convinced you all, that we need to do more, move faster, and work harder.

I hope that in 2025 we will all continue to work together to become constant advocates for Australia's competitiveness.

Thank you.