FEDERAL Resources Minister Martin Ferguson this morning outlined the opportunities and challenges moving forward for the national resource industry, including productivity issues, skills shortages and an assessment of approval processes.
Addressing delegates at the AREEA 2012 National Conference, Minister Ferguson outlined the national resource industry’s continued success and said ‘maintaining our competitive advantage is no easy task’.
“We face some easily foreseeable challenges as a result of the resources industry’s continued success. Rising wages and plant and equipment costs need to be matched by increased productivity if we are to maintain the pace of growth,” Mr Ferguson said.
“This is not always the case. I was recently given the example of a company whose man hours for pouring a cubic metre of concrete had increased from 9.1 to 11.3 between 1998 and 2012. This is unacceptable and we have to front up to this challenge.”
Noting both government and industry will play a role in maintaining Australia’s competitiveness, Mr Ferguson said any fair assessment of the nation’s productivity must include an assessment of its approvals processes.
“Industry needs to maintain the pace of technological innovation to ensure efficiency and international competitiveness. On the other hand, Governments must ensure a minimal regulatory burden and encourage exploration through acreage releases and the provision of pre-competitive geological data,” he said.
“At the most recent COAG meeting the Prime Minister obtained agreement for the states and the Commonwealth to consider concrete measures to lift regulatory performance. This means indentifying ways that will reduce complexity and duplication while increasing transparency and accountability in decision making.”
In a wide ranging keynote address, Minister Ferguson also spoke of the ongoing challenges for resource employers in sourcing the labour required to move large projects into the operational phase.
Ahead of Gary Gray’s scheduled press conference at the conference at 12:00 noon on the matter, Minister Ferguson spoke of the merits of Enterprise Migration Agreements (EMAs).
“While the emphasis is on developing local workers, the Government acknowledges that increased migration has a major role to play in providing skills that cannot be met by the Australian labour market,” Mr Ferguson said.
“The Government is introducing Regional Migration Agreements and Enterprise Migration Agreements to enable resources projects to access overseas workers when vacancies can’t be filled locally.
“They have been introduced to ensure peak workforce needs are met, to ease capacity constraints and ensure the full benefits of major projects can be realised.”
