Shire of Coolgardie angers mining industry with 97 per cent rates hike
A cash-strapped regional shire in Western Australia's Goldfields is pushing on with plans to hike mining rates despite significant public backlash.
The move has drawn the ire of industry titans in Perth and local prospectors.
The Shire of Coolgardie, which was founded on the discovery of gold in 1892, has taken drastic steps since March when it revealed it was facing a $6.5 million budget deficit.
The local government, colloquially known as "the mother of the Goldfields", was already dealing with an ongoing investigation into former CEO James Trail when it this month proposed raising mining rates by 119 per cent.
The plan to increase the rate in the dollar for mining rates from 0.23667 to 0.52030 would result in increases for all operating mining companies and tenements within the shire.
The proposal attracted 21 submissions during public consultation, with a further 179 submissions lodged in a petition.
Objections flowed from major employers in the Goldfields, including companies controlled by mining magnates Andrew Forrest and Chris Ellison, and powerful lobby groups such as the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC).
At Tuesday's ordinary council meeting in Coolgardie, councillors voted in favour of a slightly reduced increase in the rate in the dollar of 0.46827.
It equated to a 97 per cent increase in mining rates.
Councillors also agreed to provide a 30 per cent concession for prospectors and a 25 per cent concession for exploration companies, reducing forecast rates revenue by $481,478.
The shire has forecast rates revenue of $20.57 million in 2025-26, up $7.86 million from the $12.71 million forecast in 2024-25.
Shire of Coolgardie president Mal Cullen had defended the proposed increase, telling the ABC the additional income would help cover the cost of a $10.4 million capital works program to repair roads damaged by increased heavy vehicle movements and mining activity in the past three years.
"The reasoning behind the proposed increase is to maintain infrastructure in the shire, such as the road network," he said.
"The cost of operation of local government these days is significant."
Deputy shire president Tracey Rathbone said the shire had done its best under the circumstances, telling the packed public gallery at Tuesday's meeting that "voices have been heard".
"It has not been an easy budget to work through," she said.
The angry response to the proposed hike was reflected by the Eastern Goldfields Prospectors Association, which took out a full-page newspaper advertisement in Tuesday's edition of the Kalgoorlie Miner.
The advertisement depicted the shire as the grim reaper and urged ratepayers to "stand with us", calling for the appointment of administrators and for Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley to intervene "before mining is destroyed".
"We're upset, our members are ropeable they've been targeted to get the shire out of trouble," president Cranston Edwards said.
"They just go to the mining industry for a quick fix, it's a like a drug addict … we've been attacked."
Prospector Ferdinand Gere said the proposed rates hike was unrealistic and scandalous.
Privately-owned gold miner, Corinthian Mining, said if approved, the rates bill on its tenements would jump nearly $300,000 a year to $511,534.
The shire disputed that figure.
Corinthian Mining managing director Noel Wemyss said it risked Coolgardie's reputation as a stable place to invest.
Ms Beazley has been contacted for comment.
Mr Ellison's Mineral Resources, which placed its Bald Hill mine near Kambalda into care and maintenance last year, has been working closely with the Shire of Coolgardie on plans to upgrade the Kambalda Airport.
It said the proposed increases differed markedly from neighbouring local governments with no evidence-based rationale to justify the hike.
In response to a similar comment during the council meeting's public question time, shire president Mal Cullen said each shire had different budget considerations to work through when drafting rate increases.
Mineral Resources manager of land access and tenure, Michael Bycroft, said it would result in a $400,000 increase in rates, describing the proposed hike as "unfair and inequitable".
Mr Forrest's Wyloo Metals, which closed its Kambalda nickel mines last year, wrote in its public submission to the shire that its rates bill would increase from $725,471 to $1.74 million as a result of the proposed hike.
Wyloo's Kambalda asset president, Zoran Seat, noted the financial impact of the shire's decision to build a 328-bed workers camp in Kambalda, known as Bluebush Village.
He said multi-million dollar losses from the effectively failed investment by the shire had directly contributed to its deficit.
"We have serious concerns that the proposed rate hike is being implemented to raise funds to address the shortfall in finances the shire is facing, rather than as part of a fair or sustainable fiscal strategy," Mr Seat wrote.
ASX-listed exploration company WIN Metals said its rates bill would jump from $299,000 a year to $511,000, which it described as "simply ridiculous".
"The shire and its financial issues are entirely of its own creation," WIN Metals managing director Steve Norregaard said.
A submission from AMEC chief executive Warren Pearce called it an "extraordinary leap", saying he was not unsympathetic to the shire's financial woes but "exorbitant rates" were not the solution.
Mining giant Rio Tinto, via its general manager of technical services for lithium, Leigh Slomp, said mining growth was fragile.
He pointed to a recent downturn in nickel and lithium as examples.
"It threatens to severely undermine confidence in Coolgardie as a mining-friendly shire and ultimately reduce long-term revenue as companies reassess the attractiveness of operating in Coolgardie and its reputation as a stable place to invest," he said.
Gold miner Evolution Mining, which this year completed a $228 million expansion of its Mungari operations, estimated the rates on its mining tenements would increase by $1.6 million to $2.8 million.
Evolution Mining also owns the 100-bed Kurrajong Village in Coolgardie, with the company calculating the rates for the workforce accommodation would increase by $784,237 to $1.43 million.
Mungari general manager Scott Barber said the increases would have lasting and long-term repercussions, adding the company would be asking the local government minister to intervene.
ASX-listed Minerals 260 in January paid $166.5 million to acquire the Bullabulling gold project near Coolgardie.
It plans to enter production in 2028 with a mine employing about 350 workers.
Minerals 260 managing director Luke McFadyen said the proposed rates hike would deter investment in the region, reduce exploration activity and discourage the key industry which underpinned the local economy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin says party infighting is over as focus shifts to 2026 election
Victorian opposition leader Brad Battin has conceded some Liberal Party MPs have focused more on internal rivalries than voters, but has said his team will be unified heading into the election in 2026. Mr Battin described the party's decision to provide former leader John Pesutto a $1.55 million loan to avoid bankruptcy, a policy he supported, as a "line in the sand" that signalled a renewed focus on winning government. The long-running fight between Mr Pesutto and fellow Liberal MP Moira Deeming, who successfully sued her former leader for defamation, has divided the party. It became a proxy battle in a broader ideological struggle for control of the party. In an interview with the ABC, Mr Battin said he was speaking to every MP individually following the decision to provide Mr Pesutto a financial lifeline, stressing the need for unity. "You've been elected as a local member of parliament. You've got the self-discipline to get there. You just need now to put that into team unity." Asked whether MPs who failed to be team players would face consequences, Mr Battin said voters would ultimately decide. "The consequences are, you lose the election. It's a pretty simple consequence." The Coalition has not won a Victorian election since 2010 and has been crippled by infighting. A common criticism is that too many MPs are focused more on getting to parliament rather than winning government. "I think there's always an element of that, because it's been publicly perceived as that,'' Mr Battin said. The Berwick MP said it was incumbent on MPs to reflect on why they were elected. "What things did you want to see change in the state? And can you do it from opposition? If the answer is yes … then you're probably in the wrong job." Mr Battin challenged Mr Pesutto's leadership six months ago after his supporters undermined Mr Pesutto's position, but Mr Battin reiterated throughout the interview that his team was now united. He hinted that the frontbench team could change but would not say if Mr Pesutto or Ms Deeming would be included in a revamped shadow cabinet. Ms Deeming had proposed an alternative to the party loaning Mr Pesutto money, including delaying his court order debt if her preselection was guaranteed. Mr Battin declined to comment on that or complaints to the state's anti-corruption watchdog, citing legal advice not to speak publicly on the matter. While expressing confidence in the team he would take to the election, Mr Battin said some MPs would need to reflect on their future. "People have to make decisions about time served in parliament, if they want to stay or not,'' he said. The Coalition must add 16 seats at next year's November election to win office. The task is big, but after three terms of Labor, there is a genuine chance for the Liberals, Mr Battin believed. "We've got one chance coming up in about 16 months. It's our opportunity to ensure we prove to Victorians we're ready." He said the party would now focus on policy, with internal disputes hopefully behind him. Mr Battin admitted the long-running conflict between Mr Pesutto and Ms Deeming took a toll on him, including sleepless nights. "It takes a physical and mental challenge on you … but it's resolved my drive. I know what I need to do to win at the next election." He doesn't regret how he handled the matter, stressing that it was a dispute between two individuals. Some MPs criticised Mr Battin for a lack of leadership in failing to resolve the crisis sooner, while others were angered by his decision to support the loan to Mr Pesutto, highlighting the party's ongoing divisions. "I know what I need to do to win at the next election. I need to get the right policy settings, have the right processes with my team, ensure we're a united front, and send a message to Victoria that we're ready to govern."
SBS Australia
2 hours ago
- SBS Australia
Amy thought she had a secure job as an international student
Back in 2023, international student Amy - not her real name - thought she had found a secure job in Darwin. The then 30-year-old was hired as a student service officer, by vocational education provider International House Sydney, where she was studying for an Advanced Diploma in Program Management. And unlike cash-in-hand casual jobs that many international students and new migrants often take, Amy felt secure with the position. "It was a part-time permanent job, because I was on a student visa, so I could only work part-time, but it was a permanent contract." But in January 2025 the company went into liquidation. Amy's Australian colleagues were able to access the Australian government's Fair Entitlements Guarantee, or FEG. The Guarantee allows people to claim back wages, redundancy payments and other entitlements after a company closes. But because Amy was an international student, she wasn't eligible for the scheme meaning that until today, she still hasn't been paid some wages or other entitlements after the company closed. "So I thought that I would be more protected if I had a permanent contract. But then, when this happened, I realised that as an migrant, I do not have the same rights. I cannot access the same, yes, the same safety net as an Australian or a (permanent) resident." According to International House Sydney's liquidator, PKF Melbourne, the education provider had been trading at a loss from at least June 2022. By the time it went into administration, it had around 3,800 students and 318 staff. Amy says they were informed by the liquidator that if funds remained after the liquidation, staff who couldn't access the FEG would be prioritised for repayment. SBS News have put questions about follow-up payments with migrant staff to PKF Melbourne, but they didn't reply specifically to the question. It's an issue facing many small and medium-size education providers after the federal government tightened international student enrolments last year. Felix Pirie is the chief executive of Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia. "We saw a big downturn for students to apply, to come or even consider lodging an application to come to Australia to undertake skills training courses but also English language programs." According to a report by the ITECA, in 2021 there are around 162,000 students enrolling in independent higher education providers with over half of them international students. Mr Pirie says the increased fees for visa applications and the slowdown of visa process hit his sector most. "The outcome of these things is that independent providers are the ones singled out at the end of the day, or they are the one that certainly feels the biggest impacts, and it's the people they employ. So they employ significant workforce, and when their business start to suffer, those people lose their jobs." If an international student finds their education provider goes into administration, they have the right to access the government's Tuition Protection Service. This helps students find alternative course options and get a full refund from the provider. Matt Kunkel is the Chief Executive Officer of Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria. He says many international students are also employed in the sector. "What the other impact on this is for many migrant workers is that once they complete their education in Australia, many of them are moving into the education sector themselves, and in particular the international education sector. So for those workers who have come to build a life, to get an education and build a life in Australia, these international caps are putting pressure on jobs in the sector." In 2019, the then Coalition government released the final report from the government's Migrant Workers' Taskforce, which recommended an expansion of the FEG to all migrant workers. The Migrant Workers' Taskforce was established in 2016 to tackle migrant worker exploitation but since the 2019 report - the FEG has yet to be expanded. In 2025 the Albanese Labor government announced a consultation process looking into reforms to the FEG, after some businesses were found to have misused the scheme. Mr Kunkel says the federal government needs to allow international students and migrant workers to access the FEG as soon as possible. "Our visa system is built around this idea that international students are here just to study. But the reality is that many of those international students are here working and studying in Australia, and we need a visa system that allows those workers who are coming, those international students who are coming to Australia to be able to live a dignified life as they study and get that education." Seri Feldman-Gubbay is a senior solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre. She also agrees that there's a gap between the safety net for local workers and international students. "I think that the biggest thing is that a lot of Australian employing businesses rely on the fact that international students will be unfamiliar with the legal system and the rules in Australia. And so there will be, I guess, a false sense of confidence that is this employer is going to do right by me, when, in actual fact, a lot of employers take advantage of that lack of knowledge to then do the wrong thing and leave people in a really bad position." And without the FEG scheme, Ms Feldman-Gubbay says for employees like Amy taking claims to court is one option. Amy wants to see a change. "I don't think I will ever be compensated, because I doubt there's money to be found, but I would really hope that in the future, nobody else has to go through this situation, or also for there to at least be something that is more talked about. I have not heard about this until it happened to me. I think that every migrant should know that this is something that could happen to them."
SBS Australia
2 hours ago
- SBS Australia
'Projects are falling away': Donald Trump's $400m blow to Australia's global moves
President Donald Trump's administration made heavy cuts to the United States Agency for International Development earlier this year. Source: AAP, ABACA, Press Association / Ken Cedeno The Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid have resulted in a $400 million blow to Australian projects, according to a peak body for humanitarian agencies, forcing organisations to abandon critical work and leaving vulnerable communities without essential support. At the start of this year, the international peacebuilding group Conciliation Resources (CR) was starting a five-year project in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. However, Ciaran O'Toole, director of CR's Southeast Asia and the Pacific department, said it was halted due to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts, which followed US President Donald Trump's 90-day funding pause in January . "We work primarily in communities, building or enhancing the capacities to be able to prevent violent conflict," O'Toole said. But "it was quite quickly stopped", she said, as part of USAID pulling out. The program's goal was to prevent violence in an area where conflict is increasing. Last year, 49 people were killed in the Highlands region in what was considered a major escalation in tribal fighting. "It's not just reacting to when violence occurs. It's not just crisis management. It is about trying to resolve what are the underlying causes of these conflicts," O'Toole said. "It is what not happens, right? It's the headlines that don't exist." But the plan to station mediators in PNG's Hela province to assist communities in finding non-violent ways to address grievances came to an abrupt halt due to the funding pause earlier this year. Only 14 per cent of programs have had their funding reinstated since then. CR was forced to let some staff go and reduce the hours of others. "It is the communities that are affected by violence, and in particular, the women that suffer abuse, the people that are affected directly by violence who struggle to see a light at the end of the tunnel," O'Toole said. "I would feel more for them." The program is one of more than 120 projects by Australian aid agencies impacted by the cuts, according to a report by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID). ACFID found that at least 124 programs run by Australian organisations were affected by the US funding cuts, worth at least $400 million, and 20 in-country offices for Australian-based aid organisations were closed as a result. Jessica Mackenzie, ACFID policy and advocacy chief, said: "Just one agency had to let go of 200 local staff." "They would have been single-income families, so you can imagine the flow-on effects." ACFID believes the actual impact of the cuts to be greater than indicated by a survey, where less than half of its members responded. Australian-run programs in the Indo-Pacific region were hardest hit, with $113 million worth of funding lost in the Pacific, closely followed by $111 million in Southeast Asia. But the impact for Australian agencies extends throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The report found a specific program assisting 765,000 people in Yemen was discontinued. "It was providing life-saving medicine. It was providing life-saving food, and it was providing malnutrition help for 26,000 children under the age of five," Mackenzie said. In Nepal, a program supporting over 300 girls in attending school was also axed, according to the report. "That means that they're more exposed to modern slavery, to human trafficking, to forced child marriage," Mackenzie said. "The flow-on effects of these projects and their ability to break the cycle of poverty are really quite compounding." It is still unclear whether programs co-funded by both the Australian and US governments will proceed. "When that US funding was stripped back, that whole project now comes into question," Mackenzie said. "What I'm hearing, it's very hard to say at this early stage, but a lot of these projects are falling away now." The council found child-related programs, including those covering education, health, nutrition, and anti-child trafficking, were also significantly affected. The US government undertook a review during the initial 90-day pause to ensure only programs fully aligning with the president's foreign policy were funded by USAID. While aid organisations say they have been given little clarity by the administration as to why programs were cut, there is a belief that those focused on climate change and gender did not meet the administration's expectations. "I don't think there was much thinking gone into it, to be quite honest," O'Toole said. "Anything that had the word gender in it. Anything, possibly, even with the words peace building, was eliminated, we believe, pretty quickly. "There's a lot of talk around peace from the administration. A desire to sign peace agreements to Nobel Prizes, but at the end of the day, peace starts in communities. It starts with people. It starts on the ground." Labor reallocated $119 million of foreign aid from global health and education programs to the Indo-Pacific region in its pre-election budget in response to the USAID pause, but did not announce any additional spending. After the election, Labor committed $10 million of additional aid to Gaza. ACFID is calling for aid spending to be increased from 0.65 per cent to 1 per cent of the federal budget to help fill the gap left by the US cuts. "Between 2005 and 2015, it was at 1 per cent," Mackenzie said. "This isn't a really big change." Since coming into power, Labor has increased its diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in the Pacific, with concerns about China's influence in the region driving increased investment and aid programs. Mackenzie said the government should prioritise funding health, education, and nutrition programs over initiatives with "geostrategic imperatives". World Donald Trump US Government Share this with family and friends
