Australian mining will continue to contribute significantly to Australia’s jobs, exports, government revenue and lower emissions with the right policy settings to support it.
The Coalition’s promise today to provide stable tax settings (no new taxes), supporting exploration activities (particularly for critical minerals), addressing skills shortages, attracting investment, streamlining environmental planning assessment and approvals processes and reducing regulatory barriers is a strong commitment to help mining continue to deliver for the nation.
Improving enterprise bargaining – including by allowing greenfields agreements of up to six years for projects larger than $500 million – is a sensible reform that will stimulate new investment and jobs across Australia.
The Resources Technology for Critical Minerals Trailblazer is a game changer for innovation led safety, productivity and sustainability. This new approach to government-industry-university collaborative research is world-class and will make Australia’s resources sector stronger and more competitive.
The Trailblazer involving Curtin University, James Cook University, University of Queensland and 33 industry partners will supercharge innovation by aligning technology research with industry problems and opportunities while keeping intellectual property and knowledge skills in Australia.
The mining industry is the backbone of the Australian economy.
Mining navigated through the pandemic to keep its workforce safe and operations running contributing to the world’s demand for minerals, the Australian economy – regionally and nationally – and to government revenues to help fund services for the community, including mental health, aged care and women’s programs, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure.
The industry continues to pay the highest on average wages, the most company tax, delivers the most export revenue and was critical to supporting regions and communities, including providing 1.1 million jobs in the mining, mining equipment, technology and services sector.
Resources export revenue reached a new record high of $351 billion in 2021 and 68 per cent of total Australian export revenue.
There was also a surge in mineral exploration activity in Australia in 2021 with exploration expenditure totalling $3.6 billion, up 28 per cent from the previous year.
Australian mining pays the highest average wages ($144,000 a year, compared to $94,000 across all industries).
The industry also contributed $39.3 billion in taxes and royalties in 2019-20.
The decadal (FY 2011-12 to FY 2020-21) contribution to the economy is stellar – $2.1 trillion in resources export revenue, $246 billion in mining wages, 21 per cent of Australia’s GDP growth, $132 billion in company taxes and $106 billion in royalties.
