Minerals Council of Australia joins chorus of | Australian Markets

The Minerals Council of Australia has joined the chorus of criticism concerning the Shire of Coolgardie’s big mining charges hike for 2025-26, saying a high-cost native authorities space is “not a welcoming jurisdiction”.

The latest assault on the shire comes as Australian Bureau of Statistics figures confirmed a hunch in exploration spending in WA.

The ABS this week mentioned exploration spending throughout all commodities within the State dropped from $553.6 million within the three months to March 2024 to $530.6m during the identical period this 12 months.

The Minerals Council’s govt director of WA David Parker informed the Kalgoorlie Miner during a go to to town on Wednesday that exploration was essential to an ongoing pipeline of mine development.

“If you don’t have that pipeline of projects coming through, and you don’t have that . . . exploration activity, it’s going to be very hard to sustain continued operation particularly when you’ve got such globally significant demand for a product like gold at the moment; you’ve got to have those new operations, those greenfield and potentially brownfield sources of supply coming into the production cycle,” he mentioned.

“The expectation for most global markets is that this country is investing in the front-end exploration to keep our production pipeline going.”

Mr Parker mentioned the Shire of Coolgardie’s mining charges hike was simply one other obstacle to this.

“Why would you look here if you’ve got a high-cost jurisdiction, or a high-cost local government jurisdiction . . . I think you’re sending a wrong sentiment . . . you’re not a welcoming jurisdiction, and it’s financially disadvantageous to operate in this particular area if your cost structure is going to be that much higher,” he mentioned.

The shire final week accredited a near-doubling of the unimproved worth mining rate-in-the-dollar of 0.455263 for the 2025-26 financial 12 months, in comparison with 0.236670 in 2024-25.

The determination prompted the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies to ask Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley to intervene.

“We’ll be asking the minister of local government to reject that and send the council back to the starting gate,” chief govt Warren Pearce informed the Kalgoorlie Miner.

The Eastern Goldfields Prospectors Association can also be calling for ministerial intervention.

This week a Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries spokesperson mentioned Ms Beazley was “actively involved” in reviewing Coolgardie’s “substantial increase”.

“Given the substantial increase proposed and the breadth of concerns being raised from impacted ratepayers, the minister will be actively involved in reviewing this submission and is working very closely with the DLGSC,” she mentioned.

“The Shire of Coolgardie will be advised of an outcome once the minister and DLGSC have reviewed the request.”