Mining Industry

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:15): I rise today to talk about some of the results of the latest budget, and to express some serious concern, especially in relation to regional South Australia and the mining industry in that area. As a Labor government, we had a proud record of supporting the mining industry in South Australia. In fact, in 2004 we introduced the Plan for Accelerating Exploration (PACE), which I believe all objective and fair commentators would indicate was an incredibly successful program.

The reason for introducing that program was the particular geology of South Australia. Unlike Western Australia and some of the other states, we do not have the benefit of significant outcropping in South Australia. We have a layer of sedimentary rock, so exploration efforts are a lot harder in this state than elsewhere, and the PACE program was one way of addressing that. So from 2004 until this latest budget, South Australia assisted the mining sector when it came to exploration activity in this state.

The benefits have been enormous. The return on public money through that investment was an additional $2.4 billion of mining revenue in South Australia—by any measure a highly successful program—so it was incredibly disturbing to see the program cut in this latest budget. The South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy was certainly not happy about that cut to what was an outstanding program.

I come from a mining community, a community that was built on mining through the iron ore wealth in the Middleback Ranges. I also serve a number of other mining communities in the state, including Roxby Downs, which is dependent upon the Olympic Dam resource. In my electorate there is also one of those examples of the success of the PACE program with Carrapateena, where there was direct government investment in the drilling program with a small explorer.

As result of that, the largest untapped copper resource in Australia was discovered, leading to the development of a $916 million mine. In the long term this will employ something like 500 people in the north of regional South Australia. Those sorts of discoveries are now going to be much harder. They will be pushed off into the future or they might not occur at all as a result of the very negative initiative taken by this Liberal government in its latest budget.

I know some members opposite have issues with mining, especially when it comes to agricultural areas of the state, and there is sometimes legitimate conflict that needs to be resolved. However, we should never retreat from the overall proposition we should all entertain; that is, what will be the long-term net benefit to the state, recognising that sometimes some people in some areas, highly localised areas, might have to make a sacrifice? Those people should be more than adequately compensated for the hit they are taking for the rest of the state.

Mining is incredibly important to the future of our state. I call upon the Liberal government at the half-year budget review to reintroduce PACE because it was such a successful program. There is a lot more out there to be discovered when it comes to mineral resources in South Australia, not just in the arid and semi-arid parts of the state, but also in some of our richer agricultural areas. If you look down on Eyre Peninsula, if Iron Road ever gets off the ground, it would have a massive impact in the communities around Eyre Peninsula. So, it will be interesting to see how the Liberal Party resolves its conflict between agriculture and mining.

Time expired.