Better together: Push for Federal Government to force mining and green energy to co-exist

Australia might be known as the great southern land, but an escalating fight for space has industry leaders calling for the Federal Government to intervene to ensure mining and renewable energy projects can co-exist.

A new report by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies is warning that priority access for green energy developers is putting the lucrative mining industry at risk, thrusting the issue on the agenda ahead of this month’s national economic roundtable.

“We have many more competing uses for the land, no consistent rules and established industries that provide the foundational base of our economy forced to play second fiddle,” AMEC chief executive Warren Pearce said.

“It’s paralysing mining development, sterilising resources and it’s entirely avoidable.”

The AMEC report, Congested & Contested - Co-existence The Key to Unlocking Productivity, warns that tax and royalty revenue of $493 billion is at stake, due to “uncertainty, delays and conflict” over land use.

It reports that a preference for exclusive rights is locking mining exploration out, including in WA’s Mid-West.

Toolonga Mineral Sand’s tenements for coccolith chalk near Kalbarri were terminated, to make way for the foreign-owned Murchison Green Hydrogen Project that has been awarded major project status from the Federal Government and received $814 million in Headstart funding.

“We have stated that we we can coexist. But no, the Minister has ignored that request,” Toolonga Mineral Sands managing director Ann Conlan-Nash said.

“As far as the Murchison green hydrogen project, we know that they’re not going to do anything up there for probably five to six years.

“We could have been moving forward since 2020. It’s been five years that we’ve been waiting, fighting.”

AMEC said it’s an example of the rush to renewable energy “running roughshod” over regional communities and risking a backlash from locals.

The AMEC report found meeting demand from both industries would require an equivalent of “two Australia’s” if exclusive rights are applied to all 77 million square kilometres of land.

Mr Pearce said the solution was diversification leases that had been attempted, but not often taken up, in WA.

“This has actually become a really big problem in regional WA,” he said.

“Despite the fact that all of these renewable energy project proponents say they don’t require exclusive licences, not one of them are using the diversification leases. They’re opting for a section 79 lease which provides exclusive tenure.

“It means they’re pursuing a path that tries to lock out other users and that’s the worst possible outcome.”

He’s lobbying for a national model, to ensure consistency and offer investors certainty.

“Everyone benefits, because the highest value land use is multiple land use,” Mr Pearce said.

“The reality is you can do these things without actually ruining the overall purpose or economic benefit of the wind farm. 99 per cent of it will remain untouched. You just need to take a piece out of it.

“That piece creates jobs, taxation, revenues and, of course, royalties, as well as what’s going on with the wind farm.”