Reports of Australian mining boom’s death ‘exaggerated’-PM Gillard – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – September 5, 2012)

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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard ventured into politically hostile territory at the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies to drum up support for her education program

RENO (MINEWEB) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s insistence that the Australian mining boom was far from over, struck a discordant note among attendees at the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies convention Tuesday.
 
Last month, Gillard’s Resources Minister Martin Ferguson declared Australia’s mining boom over after the world’s largest mining company, BHP Billiton, delayed the expansion of the Olympic Dam expansion and announced it would not approve any major new projects before June 2013.
 
The same day Gillard delivered her talk, Fortescue Metals Group announced it would cut staff and reduce operating costs, and would revise its FY 2013 capex guidance from US$6.2 billion to $US4.6 billion. The company also said it would defer development of the Kings deposit within the Solomon Mining hub and the completion of a fourth berth at Herb Elliot Port until “iron ore prices return to more sustainable levels.”
 
However, official figures released last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics forecast a 41% increase in mining investment during the current financial year of A$115.8 billion. The forecast was based on business spending plans in the resources sector.
 
Gillard said mining investment will hit A$119 billion by the end of this fiscal year. “That’s 13 times higher than before the mining boom, much of it overseas,” she observed. “We can also take heart from Monday’s exploration data, which showed that trend exploration expenditure rose 3.1% in the June quarter, up 23% on the same quarter last year.”
 
“Let’s make it clear,” Gillard stressed. “Reports of the mining boom’s death have been exaggerated. This is a boom with three distinct phases: A prices boom, which is now passing; an investment boom still trying to reach its peak as seen in those remarkable capex figures; a production boom, as all that effort comes to fruition in the years and decades ahead.”
 
During her speech, the prime minister also criticized Australian mining companies’ hiring practices.
 
“Why fly workers in from Manila or Shanghai when they could be flying in from Hobart or Adelaide, especially given the softening of construction and manufacturing in many parts of the nation?”
 
“Why hold job expos in the eastern states of America when you could be holding them in the eastern state of Australia?”
 
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