The Golden Goose is Sick

Australia is now earning $A1 billion per year less in export earnings from gold than the nation did in 1997, because of falling gold production.

Figures released on Australian gold production for the first quarter of 2002 (66 tonnes) indicate that a five-year decline in output is continuing.

Dr David Denham, President of the Australian Geoscience Council, said today (Wednesday) that this fall can only be rectified by boosting exploration activity to find more gold.

“We need to find new deposits of gold,” he said. “Unless the Commonwealth Government stimulates mineral exploration, our balance of payments figures will decline and a thriving and innovative industry will be choked off.”

Dr Denham said the AGC was writing to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources to propose three actions for government, to encourage more exploration activity.

1) Implement a Whole of Government Action Agenda on Mineral Exploration, particularly to consider what can be done to improve equitable land access procedures for exploration and attract capital back into mineral exploration,

2) Provide Geoscience Australia with sufficient funding to obtain geoscience information over under-explored “Greenfield” areas, and undertake focused research on gold formation processes, and

3) Include the geosciences as a priority sector in the Commonwealth’s research priorities.

He said that over the past five years exploration activity for gold has fallen from an investment of $A728 million in 1996/97 to $A370 million in 2000/01, and the trend is continuing.

“Gold is Australia’s third largest single export after coal and crude oil. In 1997 the annual gold production was 314 tonnes (worth about A$5.9 billion at current rates and prices),” Dr Denham said.

“But if the present trend continues, production for 2002 will drop to about 265 tonnes. This is equivalent to a loss of about A$1 billion in export earnings over the 1997 figures

Dr David Denham,
President Australian Geoscience Council

5 June 2002

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