From the tone of the linked article.
Was it good management for the resource companies to compete with each other for the building of their infrastructure?
The result of which has been a price disequilibrium throughout Australia that has affected the cost of projects, caused the Reserve Bank to keep interest rate high and resulted in a high Aussie dollar that has pressured Australian manufacturers.
The strategy of Rio and BHP seems to be increase volume because they are low cost producers and are still profitable at low prices. If low commodity prices continue, after a couple of years the high cost producers will mothball projects and perhaps will be absorbed by the main players at bargain prices.
If they reduced their output it would be picked up by other producers around the world.
But the linked article in the OP was in response to Twiggy Forrest musing about capping production in an attempt to push up ore prices.
The articles author usually writes against protectionism because, in the end it's the consumer that ends up paying for it. So perhaps the article is an observation of what happened with the mining investment and the adverse affects on Australia.
