A national minerals strategy

Making our own luck in the Asian Century.

There’s nothing better than being in the right place at the right time. Having China hungry for our coal and iron ore in recent years has been a once in a lifetime windfall for Australia. It represented a boom in exports and revenue. It has also fostered a good-times mentality, craving price highs, more tonnes and more profits without much thought of a long term strategy for after the party.

For the mining sector, and indeed Australia, the tune is changing. Demand is softening and maintaining market share is tougher in the face of declining ore quality, cost pressures and competition from new entrants across the globe. We must be smarter in what we do and how we do it: including targeting opportunities which value-add and build advantage.

Starting from where we are already well established, we need to expand the $12 billion exports of know-how and services arising from the mining equipment and technology sector which goes to 100 countries. In addition, industry still needs to find and develop new local resources at competitive costs. This is aided by the productivity commission report into exploration and the National Exploration Strategy and in part through country strategies linked to the Asian Century white paper, but more coordinated action is needed. We also need to recognise that across the Asia-Pacific region, metal resources are to be found above ground, in tailings as well as scrap from our cities, the urban mines of the future.

Heading towards the Federal election, the incoming government faces tough choices and a serious effort to put Australia on a sound footing for the future. As an industry and as citizens, we must encourage ourselves, our corporate leaders and elected representatives to make our own luck. Increased competitiveness to make the most of the remaining commodity cycle requires a National Minerals Strategy. This can help align the strengths of each state in a national picture without adding red or green tape.

A National Strategy would:

• position for long term development, promoting innovation in mining and allied sectors as a bridge to a resilient economy
• provide global leadership that supports responsible supply chains such as the Steel Stewardship Forum
• gather better data to inform industry, government and community through a National Mineral Account for regional and national pictures of benefits and impacts
• support the development of transformational technology and innovation in areas from automation and remote tele-operation to best practice remediation
• guide the development of tomorrow’s skillbase for the mines of the future
• extend strengths in development and export of software, services and practices
• strengthen competitiveness and social licence with a one-stop-shop for harmonised exploration and development, as well as management of abandoned mines across jurisdictions.

To achieve these goals, the strategy must be underpinned by better data on economic, social and environmental costs and impacts in regions and aggregated nationally. This allows a clearer articulation of benefits from mining. It can also provide a better foundation for securing social licence for industry, monitoring and planning for communities and informing an evidence base for government policy.

Novel approaches in mining can also seed innovation beyond the sector – for example, laser scanning techniques developed for guiding autonomous trucks are now being used to generate 3D images of our cities and buildings as part of the digital information revolution.

I urge you to join the public debate in support of National Minerals Strategy and offer your ideas on how it can grow opportunity for the sector and our country’s future.

“We must be smarter in what we do and how we do it: including targeting opportunities which value-add and build advantage.”.

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PROFESSOR DAMIEN GIURCO

Associate Professor Damien Giurco is Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney. He recently co-authored the report Advantage Australia: resource governance an innovation in the Asian century as part of the Mineral Futures Collaboration Cluster, a collaboration between CSIRO and five universities to explore the intersection of future scenarios for commodities, technologies and regions in transition.