Australian miners blamed for iron ore price crash

Australian miners had failed to control their market sector and were ultimately to blame for the crash in the global iron price, a local bank boss said Wednesday.

ANZ bank chief executive Mike Smith told a business lunch in Sydney that mining companies handling of their resource led to the collapse in iron ore prices.

Iron ore prices has slumped to around 47 U.S. dollars a ton, a slide of 45 percent in 13 months.

It has cut Australian government revenue and forced miners to slash jobs and other costs.

But the ANZ chief executive said prices were never going to remain at high levels.

"In many ways, this is sort of self inflicted," Smith said.

"Is it any surprise that commodity prices have dropped with the sheer amount of supply?"

Smith also called on businesses to accept slower economic growth was the "new normal", along with political instability in the age of social media.

"These are issues that are not easy to deal with and we as business people just have to understand that that is the way it is, and frankly, we just have to get on with it," he said. Endi