PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has again urged the Victorian government to dispose of a 2.75% royalty on gold produced in the state from 2020 onwards.
MCA executive director for Victoria James Sorahan said on Thursday that the imposition of the new gold tax had damaged Victoria’s reputation as a stable place to do business and hurt the future prospects of mining workers in Ballarat, Bendigo, Stawell and Heathcote.
“The Regulatory Impact Statement’s claim that imposing a significant new tax on every mine in Victoria will have no impact on profitability, jobs or regional businesses reliant on mining shows the government does not understand mining or the communities which the industry supports.
“If Labor continues to ignore regional communities, the industry and jobs will suffer,” Sorahan warned.
The gold royalty that will be implemented by the Victorian government is higher than the one imposed in Western Australia, which produces 68% of Australia’s gold.
Sorahan said to ensure that exploration success in Victoria is converted into new mines, the industry body would advocate for an exploration deduction to reduce the impact of the royalty on exploration spending, a progressive rate structure more closely aligned to profitability, and the staged rates for new startup mines in the critical early cashflow-poor years.