1613 MINING AND OUR ROLE IN SOCIETY THE “MATERIALS SOLUTIONS” INDUSTRY *Mark Cutifani1 1Director/Advisor (*Presenting author: markcutifani0205@outlook.com) OPENING REMARKS On the 13th December 1976, I started as a Cadet Mining Engineer at Coal Cliff Colliery in New South Wales, Australia. At the same time, I had to inform Sydney University I would not be taking up their offer to do Law, starting in the following February. It literally took my father 30 years to forgive me for making such a “crazy” decision. At the time and at 18 years old, my arguments were personally compelling. Staying close to family and friends, surfing the beaches of Wollongong and being paid to attend University to complete a mining degree seemed like pretty good arguments for the Coal Cliff Mine option. At no point at that time did I consider mining as an option with a grander calling or plan in mind. In fact, the arguments at the time tended to pitch the other way. Being another “Legal Eagle” or doing a similar more flexible first degree that could open possibilities for a whole range of other career choices seemed to be a much better pitch in terms of the future for a Wollongong lad. What remains very clear in my memory – there was no one there to explain mining in the context of its role in society. There was no clear story or reference point that I could use to make myself feel better about the choice I had made. Somewhere along the road, over almost 50 years, I decided that I was working in an industry that deserved more recognition for what it did, and for what it could do. And consistent with that belief, I felt I had a responsibility to make a difference in terms of how we tell our story and how we might just dare to deliver on our full potential. Consistent with both of those points, I also recognized we needed to make ourselves more attractive to young people for us to deliver on that potential on a long-term sustainable basis. My pitch today, to you, is how we might change our public discourse around our great industry. So, let’s talk about mining and the industry we are, the industry we need to be, and the industry we could be. 1. INTRODUCTION In talking about mining and what we do, for some reason we struggle to be clear on our primary role in society. So, let’s keep it simple. We produce the physical materials that support human life as we know it today. Of course, all species use the earth and materials around them to survive, to thrive and to grow. But no other species has the material impact we have on our habitats, nor do they have the potential to wreak as much havoc on a global scale as we can. However, I contend, through industrial scale and responsible mining, we are the most important industry in terms of our primary purpose to supply the materials that make the world work for some 8 billion humans. We provide the necessities of life to support social cohesion at its most basic level, while being the physical foundation upon which economic sustainability and long-term wealth creation are built, at scale. My second point builds from that first proposition, that we are the key to delivering the 3 pillars of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0Mzk2