Newcrest Mining has described the Western Australian Government’s plan to increase the state’s gold royalty rate by 50 per cent as bad policy.
The largest Australian-based gold miner operates the Telfer gold mine in the Pilbara region of WA. It produced more than 386,000 ounces of gold at the site in fiscal 2017.
Newcrest believes the state government budget plan, which would see the royalty rate increase from 2.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent from January next year, is bad policy that threatens the viability of mines which employ large numbers of people – directly and indirectly.
“Newcrest’s Telfer gold mine in the Pilbara has operated for many years and has more than 1500 people working at site,” the company said.
“Those workers live all over Western Australia. For every one worker directly employed at the mine, up to another four workers support the operation of the Telfer mine.”
Newcrest joined a gold industry rally in Kalgoorlie earlier this week to protest the WA Government decision.
More than 1000 gold industry workers and local Kalgoorlie business people stopped work to participate in the rally.
“The government’s attempt to fix the budget shortfall by hitting jobs as well as reducing investment in the state makes no sense. It is also a back flip on the pre-election commitment to not increase taxes,” Newcrest added.