The Federal Government's mining resource rent tax has come under fire from the country's gold quarter as it gathered in Perth this morning for a two day conference.
Addressing the opening session of the first day in Perth today of the Paydirt 2011 Gold Conference, Integra Mining's Managing Director, Mr Chris Cairns, said the Government had maintained in its formation of the mining tax policy that there would be no provision for exploration incentives.
"While the focus has been on the tax's impost levels on iron ore and coal, for the wider resources audience in Australia, we were and continue to look for exploration incentives under the tax's broader provisions." Mr Cairns said.
"The Government's argument for not having such incentives is that Australia has accumulated a significant inventory of unexploited and accessible, economic known mineral and petroleum reserves but that is a misleading interpretation of the health of Australia's identified mineral endowment.
"The Government continues to rely on data that is flawed and misleading - no moreso in the gold sector.
"The Government's justification for not providing exploration incentives was that Australia has 29 years worth of gold reserves.
"Nothing could be further from the truth.
"The figure is ridiculous. We would have well less than 10 years of gold reserves and no gold mine in Australia, excluding Olympic Dam which is not a major gold producer, would currently meet even a fifth of that reserves estimate.
"So the author of the Government's resource inventory reference base, Geoscience Australia, should be held accountable for bad science supporting bad policy."
