Last week a group of miners from Ballarat and other regional Victorian communities went to Melbourne in the hope the Parliament might do the right thing and put the government's unfair gold tax on hold.
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This would allow the industry to work with the government to fix its flawed tax.
Victoria's gold industry has a bright future, but the government has to ensure exploration is converted into new mines. The new tax - which scraped through the Upper House - will unfairly target smaller mines and hurt regional communities.
Ballarat Mine employs 160 people, contractors and has over 100 suppliers including local small businesses. Why put this at risk with a badly designed tax?
The industry was really pleased a number of Western Victorian parliamentarians like Stuart Grimley, Andy Meddick and several Opposition MLCs supported a fair process.
Unfortunately, Government representatives toed the party line and voted to impose a new tax on Ballarat jobs and the tax passed. The gold royalty amounts to a tax of $12,800 on every regional job in gold mining - yet the money raised won't be staying in Ballarat despite Victoria's gold mines employing more people and providing regional Victorian businesses with more work from our mines.
Gold's resurgence is breathing life into regional Victoria and helps add to Ballarat's diverse economy with a mix of industries.
Ballarat Mine employs 160 people, contractors and has over 100 suppliers including local small businesses. Why put this at risk with a badly designed tax?
The mining industry just wants a fair go. We aren't asking for handouts or tax breaks. We pay all the taxes everyone else does and support a royalty on gold.
But the tax has to change to reduce its impact on smaller mines like Ballarat and not tax mines in price downturns and put jobs at risk.
MCA Victoria will continue to fight for a fairer future for regional communities, the industry and its workforce. The MCA will advocate for an exploration deduction to reduce the impact of the royalty on exploration spending, a progressive rate structure aligned to profitability and staged rates for new start up mines in the critical early cash flow poor years.
We will work with the government to try to fix this, but it's time local members in Ballarat stood up for jobs in their community instead of allowing money to flow from regional Victoria to pay for overspending in Melbourne. Going to Parliament is just the start. We will continue to hold the government to account for their decisions that affect the Ballarat community.
James Sorahan is Executive Director, MCA Victoria
