Thinking Space: Ten Truths about Australia's Rush to Mine and the Mining Workforce

Abstract

The sky is falling because the much-vaunted mining 'boom' is heading for 'bust'. The fear-mongering by politicians, the industry and the media has begun in earnest. On ABC TV's 7:30 program on 22 August 2012, Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott blamed the Minerals Resource Rent Tax and the Carbon Tax for making 'a bad investment environment much, much worse' for the mining industry. The following day, Australia's Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told us on ABC radio that 'the resources boom is over'. This must be true because, remember, we were warned to 'Get ready for the end of the boom' (David Uren, Economics Editor for 'The Australian' 19 May 2012) due to the 'Australian resource boom losing steam' (David Winning & Robb M. Stewart, 'Wall Street Journal' 21 August 2012). Besides, there is 'unarguable evidence' that Australia's production costs are 'too expensive' and 'too uncompetitive': mining magnate Gina Rinehart said so in a YouTube video placed on the Sydney Mining Club's website on 5 September 2012. Can this really be so? What is happening to the mining boom and to the people who depend upon it? There are in fact multiple 'truths' about the mining industry. While many mining corporations, government coffers and individuals have prospered from the so-called 'boom', communities on the front line of resource-sector activities have not shared in the bootie as they had hoped. Rather, the reverse is true. Decisions favouring short-term economic gain by globalised corporations and metro-centric State governments have delivered instead a range of adverse localised social impacts. In these places, an end to the rush would be welcomed. Some truths in this tale deal with matters that many in industry, government and, it appears, academic research centres 'captured' by the mining industry do not want exposed (Hamilton & Downie 2007; Hogg et al. 2012). Nevertheless, it remains a substantially under-researched area. One reason might be the difficulty of sourcing non-compromised research funding, but that's another story. These truths were unearthed as a result of our team's ARC Discovery Project research. Commencing in 2008, we set out to address aspects of masculinity and violence in rural Australia. Analysis of secondary data highlighted 'hot spots' for violence-related harms. This influenced choice of study locations and serendipitously some fieldwork was conducted in mining communities undergoing rapid change. The presence of non-resident workers (NRWs) - those who (mostly) fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) and/or drive-in, drive-out (DIDO) from metropolitan cities, other parts of regional Australia and, to a limited extent, from overseas - were transforming these communities but not in desirable ways. But before pursuing this point, other truths need to be established.