While Australia’s mining industry is facing boom times, there are some concerns. Jim Hawtin reports.
With the growing economic and industrial strength of populous nations such as China creating surging global demand for most Australian mineral commodities, the local mining industry faces significant challenges on its home turf that threaten its ability to meet that demand.
One of the biggest issues is a concern that the sector has lost its relevance to the public.
Federally, the mining industry does not want Labor to win the forthcoming election because of its promise to abolish Federal individual contracts.
Yet Labor has also mentioned the word resources, saying it will implement a tax incentive to encourage increased investment in mineral exploration.
Miners say the current Government appears loathe to even talk about the industry, let alone implement any of the exploration incentives the industry has been calling for over a number of years.
At a State level, the mining industry also faces a number of challenges, the main issue being access to land.
Miners say they face a convoluted approvals process becoming more drawn out due to the growing number of groups claiming property rights.
According to WA mining veteran Ron Manners, chairman of both Croesus Mining and De Grey Mining, the root of the problem lies in today’s education system.
“They [politicians] don’t want to go around beating the drum about resources because kids are brainwashed at school,” Mr Manners said.
He said very little was understood about mining’s contribution to productivity and creation of wealth.
“They [politicians] don’t want to say anything that upsets the greens,” Mr Manners said.
He said the lack of understanding, was partly to blame for the serious skills shortage facing the industry.
While the mining industry had employed some initiatives to try and address the problem, such as the establishment of the Mining Hall of Fame, Mr Manners said a lot of work remained.
He said there was a lack of understanding at a political level of what the mining industry needed and, while it was an Australian problem, it particularly affected WA’s mining sector.
Mr Manners said as a result there seemed to be a disturbing opinion forming overseas that Australia had almost become irrelevant in the resources industry.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy CEO Tim Shanahan said one of the biggest issues facing the mining industry was Labor’s stance on individual workplace agreements.
However, he also said that despite lacking any resources industry-specific policy the current Federal Government’s financial management had contributed significantly to creating a positive macro economic picture for the country.
Also, while the Government had not specifically targeted the industry in its provision of Australian Workplace Agreements, the resources sector had benefited from the AWAs following the abolition of the State individual agreements, Mr Shanahan said.
He said this had allowed Australia to remain one of, if not the most, efficient mining jurisdiction in the world despite the country’s high labour and construction costs.
“So if you are going to change one of the fundamental planks by which you have achieved that productivity, the AWAs, then you really do threaten the future productivity of the industry,” he said.
The other area where mining sees the lack of understanding threatening its viability is through a reduced ability to access land.
The industry claims to be best practice and points to a regime of heavy fines and legal obligations in place to ensure this.
However, a growing number of claims to mining land are hindering the sector’s ability to explore and develop projects in a timely and cost effective manner.
The industry concedes that it has not been helped by its own stubbornness at times but that is changing
A case in point is the industry’s growing acceptance of Native Title and Aboriginal heritage, which only a few years ago was top of mind for mining companies.
LionOre Australia managing director Mark Ashley said while there remained exceptions to the rule, both mining companies and Aboriginal groups were making it less of an issue.