Australian budget disappoints

The Australian government’s 2004-5 budget failed to deliver on incentives for mineral exploration, and this failure is meeting with criticism from the mining industry.

Australian Gold Council CEO Tamara Gorrie says the budget’s neglect of mineral exploration is a significant blow, particularly given the industry’s expectation that the government would take steps to reinvigorate exploration.

Gorrie spent two years working with Australia’s federal government on ways to stimulate mineral exploration via the government’s parliamentary inquiry into mineral exploration impediments and the country’s Mineral Exploration Action Agenda.

The Australian gold industry contributes more than A$5 billion per year in export income and is a major regional employer; however, gold exploration has declined by 50% in recent years, thereby jeopardizing the industry’s contribution to the national economy and regional employment.

“The budget has demonstrated a clear policy vacuum on mineral exploration in Australia,” says Gorrie. “While the gold industry remains hopeful that mineral exploration will be addressed by the government as part of its broader energy policy objectives in the short term, it is difficult not to view the 2004-05 budget as confirmation of the government’s abandonment of the mineral exploration sector.”

Gorrie is calling on representatives of the Australian government to explain how and when it intends to respond to the recommendations stemming from the Mineral Exploration Parliamentary Inquiry and Action Agenda.

“The industry has presented the government with a suite of considered recommendations designed to stimulate increased mineral exploration in Australia but remains unsure of when they will be addressed in any meaningful way by the government,” she says. “The gold exploration sector requires urgent action on the recommendations it has put to the federal government but fears that their omission from this year’s budget demonstrates a government that has lost sight of how heavily Australia relies on the wealth generated by its minerals industry.”

— The preceding is from an information bulletin published by the Melbourne-based Australia Gold Council.