Australia Yearbook - 2001

676 Year Book Australia 2001
The Native Title Act (NTA) commenced on
1 January 1994, and in 1998 the Federal
Parliament passed a comprehensive package
of amendments which commenced on
30 September 1998. Under the NTA (or
approved State/Territory legislation), applicants
for onshore mining or petroleum titles are
required to undertake formal negotiations or
consultations with native title holders or
registered native title claimants who have
registered a claim over the area prior to the
grant of the titles.
Export trends
From Federation to the mid 1960s Australia’s
mineral exports concentrated on Europe.
However, from 1965 the destination of mineral
exports changed, reflecting our location within
the Asian region. In 1965, 41% of Australia’s
mineral exports went to Europe (and 24% of
total exports were to the United Kingdom);
41% went to Asia (32% of the total going to
Japan); and 16% went to America.
By 1998–99 these figures had changed
dramatically: 14% to Europe (6% to the United
Kingdom); 64% to Asia (26% to Japan, 12% to
South Korea, and 6% to Chinese Taipei); and
4% to America.
Concluding remarks
Since Federation, the minerals industry has
been important to Australia, both for
development of regional Australia and for the
income from its export earnings. The mining
industry has created wealth for the nation and
its people through the discovery and mining
of mineral deposits and through processing
the ore.
Australia mines, or has unworked deposits of,
almost all mineral commodities. Australia is one
of the world’s leading miners of coal, bauxite,
diamonds, gold, iron ore, lead, manganese,
nickel, titanium (rutile and ilmenite), uranium,
zinc and zircon.
Some commodities, such as petroleum, nickel,
bauxite, diamonds and uranium, have had a
relatively short production history in Australia.
Others, such as gold, coal, base metals and iron
ore, go back to the early days of the industry.
At the start of the 21st century, Australia’s
mining industry is global in its outlook,
innovative and highly successful. It has also
become recognised for its commitment and
skills to sustain and improve the practice of
mining in an environmentally responsible
manner.
Summary of mining
operations
In this chapter, the term ‘mining industry’ is used
to refer to the group of industries engaged in
mining for coal, oil and gas and metallic minerals.
It does not cover other mining activities such as
sand and gravel quarrying, mining for clay and
other construction materials or mining for
gemstones.
Table 17.2 shows that in 1997–98 mining industry
turnover was $37.3b, 9% higher than the previous
year, and value added at $23.8b was 6% higher.
However, employment in the sector fell by
9% (5,293 persons) to 50,875 persons between
June 1997 and June 1998 .
The coal mining industry remained the largest
contributor to total turnover, accounting for
33%, slightly higher than recorded for
1996–97 (32%). The oil and gas extraction
industry accounted for 25%. The other main
contributors were the gold and iron ore mining
industries which accounted for 14% and
11% respectively of total mining industry turnover
in 1997–98.