Lighter Note

Agent or agenda?

The Note loves a tiff between industry players, especially out in the open like at a conference.

So we appreciated it when Rio Tinto’s Sam Walsh got stuck into a few rivals.

"Beware those who boast of having more land under lease than any other company, or maps coloured in as fully as the old British Empire once was," Mr Walsh needled at this week’s Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast get together.

"That isn't mining. That's real estate."

There was only one target for that jibe and everyone in the room knew it – Fortescue Metals Group, Andrew Forrest’s iron ore upstart that acts as if it now owns the Pilbara these days.

FMG’s new chief operating officer, Neville Power, was in the audience and due to speak soon after. Like Mr Walsh, he had his PR flak handy, so no doubt the break was used to fashion a response. In typical FMG style, even this newcomer to the company came out all guns blazing and highlighting 85,000 square kilometres of tenement that had, without doubt, been the subject of Mr Walsh’s mockery.

"No mining company is complete without strong exploration and it may look to you and to others as if it is just a play for land," Mr Power said.

"But let me tell you, without land, without tenements, you don't actually have a mining operation."

Sold out

Sam Walsh is a favourite of this column so we couldn’t forget to update readers on the Kyilla Primary School’s Great Celebrity Book Auction, which closed on the weekend and raised $5,000 for literacy at the North Perth state school.

Mr Walsh’s book was languishing late last week in the fund-raising stakes but managed to rate a healthy $90, pipping our low-ball bid.

Entertainer Tim Minchin’s book Matilda raised the most, selling for $1,010.