Wilson: O'Connor's mining wealth drives the nation's prosperity

MR RICK WILSON MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR O’CONNOR

26th April 2026

Wilson: O'Connor's mining wealth drives the nation's prosperity

When Canberra talks about Australia’s mineral wealth, it often does so in abstractions-percentages, billions, national averages. But the truth is this wealth has a post-code, with much of Australia’s economic strength being dug, hauled and built in regional Western Australia, much of it in my electorate of O’Connor.

Stretching from the Goldfields to the Great Southern and across vast mineral‑rich regions to include Boddington, Greenbushes and Collie in the South-West, O’Connor is not just part of Australia’s mining story, it is central to it.

More than 6,000 full‑time mining employees live and work in my electorate. Their efforts support over 1,200 local businesses and generate nearly $1 billion in annual local spending, keeping regional towns viable and family‑owned enterprises alive.

Mining activity in O’Connor underpins an extraordinary $2.8 billion contribution to the economy each year.

And the minerals extracted across O’Connor feed directly into Australia’s export pipeline. Nationally, mining delivers around 40 per cent of total exports and contributes close to $400 billion in company tax and royalties over a decade-revenue that pays for hospitals, schools, defence capability and social services across the country.

As the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, observed during his time in Western Australia this week- when this state rises, the nation rises with it.

O’Connor is living proof. Yet despite this contribution, the very communities that generate this wealth are increasingly being sidelined by policy decisions made thousands of kilometres away.

Under the Albanese Government, mining and energy investment is being buried under regulatory delay and ideological redesign. Environmental laws rewritten in Canberra have slowed approvals, removed certainty and placed a $100 billion national pipeline of resources projects at risk – most of them in regional WA. For electorates like O’Connor, where mining is not theoretical but foundational, these delays have real consequences: deferred investment, lost jobs and shrinking regional confidence.

At the same time, Labor has imposed mounting cost pressures through mechanisms that function as carbon tax such as the Safeguard Mechanism and Vehicle Emissions Reductions standards on  mining, processing and transport.

WA carries a disproportionate share of this burden. When these costs rise, it is not Canberra that feels the squeeze, it is workers and contractors across the Goldfields, Great Southern and Wheatbelt who suffer.

Perhaps most concerning is the contradiction at the heart of federal energy policy. Australia is facing a fuel and energy security challenge, yet policies actively discourage the development of domestic oil, gas, coal and uranium.

Resource projects in regions like O’Connor could deliver decades of secure supply, yet are stalled while Australians are told to accept shortages, higher prices and uncertainty.

That is not resilience. It is self‑inflicted vulnerability.

As outlined by Angus Taylor at the Chamber of Minerals and Energy in Perth on Monday, a credible alternative exists: fixing broken approvals, restoring exploration incentives that unlock future projects, recognising nationally significant developments and trusting states and regions to do what they do best-get projects built!

None of this diminishes environmental responsibility. It restores balance. It recognises that regional communities like O’Connor are not obstacles to progress, but the reason Australia enjoys the living standards it does.

The hard-working people of O’Connor do not ask for special treatment. They ask for recognition, fairness and policy settings that reflect reality rather than ideology.

If Canberra truly wants to strengthen the national economy, secure energy supply and lift living standards, it must stop neglecting the regions that fund the nation, and start backing electorates like O’Connor that power it from the ground up.

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