Tailings dam vital for jobs and future of the industry
Undermining the Rosebery Mine’s proposal attacks the state’s ability to shift to a more balanced approach to natural resource management, writes Felix Ellis
TASMANIA has a record we can be proud of in balancing the need for productive industries, such as mining, and the need to care for and manage our environment.
The continuing campaign by activists against the Rosebery Mine’s proposed tailings storage facility apparently fails to understand this balance.
First, the minerals produced in our mines are necessary for life in a modern society.
Zinc would be found in almost all our homes and wind farms. Our batteries and phones can’t function without tin and copper.
Our tradies and military can’t do their jobs without tungsten tools.
Our businesses and, ironically protesters, rely on steel and aluminium for shelter and transport.
Many of the minerals needed for our daily lives, national defence and the renewable energy transition are found, mined and processed in Tasmania.
They support thousands of Tasmanian jobs and have done for generations.
Second, Tasmania is among the world’s best when it comes to natural resource use, management and conservation.
More than 50 per cent (59 per cent or 1.79 million ha) of Tasmania’s native forests are protected in reserves – one of the highest proportions of reserved land in the world.
Thanks to Tasmania’s 100 per cent renewable hydroelectric and wind energy, our miners are light years ahead of producers in other countries when it comes to emissions.
Tasmania is in the box seat to provide the key minerals our world needs in its shift to a renewable energy future.
This appears lost on the Bob Brown Foundation and those opposed to the Rosebery Mine’s proposed tailings facility and other developments such as Venture Minerals’ tintungsten project on the West Coast.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
The minerals needed to power a renewable future will need to come from somewhere.
Few places can match Tasmania’s ability to produce low emissions, ‘green’ metals from a globally respected source.
Ongoing attempts to undermine the Rosebery Mine’s proposal simply attack the part Tasmania can play in supporting this transition.
They attack the 500 local jobs directly associated with the mine, and the hundreds more at Nyrstar’s Hobart smelter, where the zinc mined at Rosebery goes.
A recent Federal Court decision effectively stopped preliminary works at the Rosebery Mine’s proposed site. This is now a matter for the new federal Labor government.
Without new tailings infrastructure, I understand that there is a very real risk that the mine will close.
As one of my first acts as Tasmania’s Resources Minister, I wrote to the Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.
In my letter, I outlined Tasmania’s balanced approach to natural resource management and the importance of the Rosebery operation to the region, the state and the country as a whole.
Tasmanians can rest assured I will do all I can to fight for these jobs and our globally respected mining industry.
With our high renewable energy capacity, sustainable approach and mineral endowment, Tasmania is well-positioned to provide the minerals of the future.
It’s something we can all be proud of and back in.