August 2021 President’s Address

Last month a panel discussion from industry experts dived into a range of topics that investigated issues including:

• skill gaps within our industry and what strategies we have in place to help encourage the next generation into the resources sector;
• emerging technologies and how we are helping to upskill our employees;
• how as an industry we are working with our education departments to ensure we won’t have further gaps in the future;
• what attracts and retains employees in our industry;
• how we can attract and encourage our children to look at the resources sector for employment; and
• what programs or tools are we working on or have in place to ensure our children have a clear pathway into the industry.

We heard from our moderator Tamryn Barker from CORE Skills lead at CORE Hub and panellists; Chris Erikson, General Manager Technology & Innovation at Roy Hill; Courtney Christensen, Geotechnical Engineer at Newcrest, Sabina Shugg AM, Director at Curtin University Kalgoorlie Campus; and Kim Eales, Founder of MaxMine.

If you missed this event, please get in touch with either myself or Cassandra Brennan, as we record all of our events.  We are also working on answering the Slido questions that weren’t answered at last month’s luncheon and will be posting this soon to social media, so watch this space.

Again, we saw the resources sector lead by example when Australia’s mining and METS sector supported an estimated 1,131,450 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in Australia, representing approximately 10.8 per cent of the total FTE employment.

Minerals Council of Australia, Chief Executive Officer Tanya Constable stated, “When mining is strong, Australia wins”.

Some of our committee members were also out and about in Kalgoorlie at Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum. Listening to the future of our industry discuss their ESG goals, decarbonisation plans and future projects! The WA Mining industry really is making an impact.

Lastly, Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB) Week was held last week. This was a time to raise awareness about the simple things we can all do in our daily lives to reduce our impact on the environment and encourage action to reduce litter.

We encourage our industry to consider how we can continue to be role models for our families, friends and communities.