17 May 2013
IN a wide-ranging video message at the 2013 AREEA National Conference, Hancock Prospecting executive chairman Gina Rinehart has told 300 members of Australia’s mining, oil and gas industries that Australia’s resource sector must not be taken for granted.
“Australia has relied on its resources for its prosperity for a long time, and especially during the last six years of record commodity prices. We began to be called “the lucky country” decades ago when we rode on the sheep’s back, but now the country is riding on the back of the miners and related industries,” Ms Rinehart told senior mining professionals at today’s AREEA Conference.
“The industry needs to keep repeating this and standing up for itself.
“It needs to keep reminding fellow Australians that without mining and its related industries this country has no hope of repaying our record debt, without facing the problems Greece and other countries faced with over spending and consequent debt traumas.”
Ms Rinehart pointed to last month’s cancellation of the $40 billion Browse LNG project as the latest indication that Australia’s rising costs are making new resources projects ‘economically unviable’.
“Few seem to properly understand – even people in government – that miners and other resources industries aren’t just ATMs for everyone else to draw from, without that money first having to be earned, and before that, giant investments made,” Ms Rinehart said.
“Governments need to be reminded that if they want more taxes from miners and related industries they can’t discourage investment needed to first earn what they want to take. The costs must come down.
“Investment needs to be welcomed; our country must compete against all others for investment. The reverse happens when a government imposes increased taxes, apparently unable to understand how that hurts investment and makes it harder to sell our products at competitive prices internationally.
“Tax increases can destroy businesses, and that means less opportunities and fewer jobs.
“Mines don’t just sit there out in the bush, cut off from everything else. In fact, their development, construction and operations mean work and revenue to many other (industries), from every part of the country.”
AREEA chief executive Steve Knott said delegates at the 2013 AREEA National Conference responded “extremely positively” to Ms Rinehart’s presentation, and the national resource industry employer group was very thankful for her time.
Read Gina Rinehart’s speech to the AREEA 2013 National Conference HERE.
NOTE: AREEA’s 2013 National Conference is the largest gathering of resource industry professionals in Australia and wraps up today following the “Great Debate” between federal workplace relations minister the Hon. Bill Shorten MP and opposition spokesperson, Senator the Hon. Eric Abetz.
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