Print this pageAbstract: Australian Mineral Policy
In common with some other resource-producing countries, particularly Canada, Australia in the last few years has been questioning the level of her gains from mineral production and export, and has become concerned with foreign investment. The country has made changes in the system of taxing the mining industry, and now is considering the imposition of resource-rent taxes to capture an extra share of high profits for government revenue. A concern has been to see that export prices, particularly for coal sales to Japan, are at world level. Other issues have included regional development, the degree of processing before export, the extent to which governments should subsidize the provision of infrastructure in remote areas, and environmental problems.
Like Canada, Australia is a federation, and this creates special problems for minerals and energy policy. On land, minerals are mostly reserved for state governments, and it is they who issue exploration and production licenses for set royalty rates. The federal government has these powers in the territories, and is also involved offshore. The federal government has the power of export control, and because of this control has come into conflict with the states. For example, there have been conflicts on an environmental degradation issue, in preventing exports of mineral sands from Fraser Island; on a conservation issue, in deciding whether Northwest shelf gas should be exported to Japan and the United States or transported by pipeline across the continent to major population centers s ch as Sydney and Melbourne; and on a pricing issue, when it has threatened the use of its export control power during price negotiations between coal exporters and Japanese buyers.
In the past, Australia has suffered somewhat from an isolationist mentality in assessing the competitive position of its mineral policy. Politicians in particular have tended to emphasize Australia's supply of coal, iron ore, and uranium; and to see these in relation to world demand, not necessarily appreciating that there are other suppliers or potential suppliers. Membership of the International Bauxite Association, involvement in a series of international tin agreements, and the currently depressed market conditions for copper and nickel, however, have emphasized Australia's positive position in a trading world.
Australia's most pressing task at present is to discover more petroleum reserves, although this goal has been overshadowed politically by the decision to mine and export uranium.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90962©1978 AAPG 2nd Circum-Pacific Energy and Minerals Resource Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii