A single job loss may means nothing to you. But it means a lot...

A single job loss may means nothing to you. But it means a lot to any Australia family here. Thousands job loss in Iron industry means disaster, considering there are services companies linked the IRON ore companies as well.

Both BHP and RIO are multinational, multi-listing companies. Comparing to the junior minors in Australia, they have advantages in capital, technology, and shifting money overseas. But it does not mean that it is fair to squeeze other minors out the mark by manipulating the IRON price. Instead of forming a cartel to cap their production, both companies choose to oversupply the market at cost of job loss including their own staff.

Personally, I cannot see any benefits of bankrupting all the other minor and leaving BHP and RIO alone in this sector. Both companies were/are not acting on the national interest and never will. If the price moves to $US38 per tonne based on Treasury estimates there will be a nominal hit to GDP of $9.8 billion in 2015-16 and $13.4 billion in 2016-17. In terms of tax receipts, a $US38 a tonne price will lower the take for Treasury by $2.1 billion in 2015-16 and $4.4 billion in 2016-17.

Allowing reasonable competition rather than none within the Industry is preferable and it is our government's job. Unfortunately, our government keeps standing slide and keeps quiet.

Sorry, Andy, I could not agree with your logic of "killing other mining companies, leaving BHP/RIO so so we could control the price to our Chinese customer forever". If that is case, the better strategy would be "nationalize BHP/RIO,and we could control the price also, at least the 2nd strategy could keep more jobs in Australia". Keeping Chinese companies on board does not mean lower price, it only means that "dictating the market by oversupplying" strategy adopted by those two is not going work.