LIVEXchange 2025: Peak minerals advocate body calls for joint agriculture and mining efforts on regulation

Australia’s peak minerals advocacy body has urged the agriculture and mining industries to stand together as kindred sectors on regulatory issues and legislation. Speaking at the first day of the LIVEXchange conference at Crown Perth last week, Minerals Council of Australia WA executive director David Parker urged the cooperation of the two sectors to benefit communities across the country. Prior to joining the Minerals Council of Australia, Mr Parker was director of external affairs for Albemarle Lithium and head of corporate affair for Apache and Quadrant Energy. Mr Parker said the nation relied on both on the collective prosperity of the mining and agriculture industries. He outlined the financial benefits social programs such as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the National Disability Insurance Scheme receive from the two industries, and the global impact of Australia on food security. “We’ve got about 300 mines operations across Australia, and each of the mines are a tribute to Australia’s global leadership in these key commodity market,” Mr Parker said. “We’re not a monetary country like some countries which only produce one particular commodity — we’ve got a basket of commodities. “We’re number three in gold production, number five in coal production, number one in iron production, number eight in copper production — this is globally significant to the world’s economy. “If something happens in Australia, global food supplies feel it very, very quickly.” Mr Parker used the overhaul of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in Federal Parliament as a example of legislation affecting the two industries. “Here is an example of where the mining industry and its kindred industries like agriculture have got to stand up and say; ‘Minister, Parliament, with all due respect we think it can be done this way and that way . . .and keep delivering the economic output’,” he said. “We do what we can in terms of articulating those views and providing rationale and recommendations to improve industrial policy. “How we iron out these wrinkles and these imperfect situations is very much part of our MCA mission.” He argued a joint approach from the two industries would those remind those within the “Canberra bubble” of their importance to the economy and regional communities. “We’ve got to align the whole kindred interests across our regional communities, our remote communities and kindred communities — of which the agricultural industry is a very proud member — through institutions like the National Farmers Federation,” Mr Parker said. “To remind the policy thinkers and the policy think tanks and the policy makers in the national capital, that this will be quite detrimental to our economic and regional sustainability.”