The Forum > Article Comments > Moving on from the age of confrontation > Comments
Moving on from the age of confrontation : Comments
By Everald Compton, published 5/3/2012Mining at war in Australian society
- Pages:
-
- Page 1
-
- All
- Pages:
-
- Page 1
-
- All
We blithely assume that when deposits are exhausted new ones will be found. Not necessarily; the new mines could be in Africa not here. Remember what happened to Nauru. Those people who now complain about fly in-fly out might be lucky to get menial jobs in the suburbs in future. Unlike Broken Hill all these towns can't get art galleries as the ore runs out. Let's see if that works for the Pilbara.
The new trend seems to be to send bauxite and iron ore to Asia and not smelt the metals here. Some of the energy for that will come from Australian steaming coal and coking coal. That way the company avoids carbon tax and the emissions don't count as a debit against Australia. However we'll have to buy back the steel and aluminium made from our resources but pay a lot more for it. At the same time world emissions increase but we've pledged to make them decrease.
The question of exchange rates and the two speed economy I'll leave for others. Even though mining pays the bills for now we have to realise that it can and perhaps will inevitably go bad.