Some of the mining industry's biggest names and players converged in Perth on Tuesday for a landmark mining conference that focused heavily on future clean power resources and covered everything from iron ore, lithium and space to Indigenous affairs.
Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King, WA Premier Mark McGowan and Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Simon Trott were among the high-profile panellists at Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre for the Resources Technology Showcase.
The conference's most anticipated session came late in the day, with a high-profile panel tackling the big issue of Australia's transition to cleaner energy.
WesTrac chief executive officer Jarvis Croome said the challenges were immense and the transition was a massive one for the entire industry, "with no one-size-fits-all solution".
"We need to be able to produce on-scale green energy and that's going to require a lot of ingenuity," he said.
"We're going to need a lot of materials to produce all this sustainable energy... that has to come from mining and how do we do that at a time when we're trying to move into green energy as well?
"We're going to have to look at how we access land in a different way, which means we're going to have to have community groups on board."
Fellow panellist and iContracting chairman Clinton Wolf (also managing director of the National Indigenous Times) has represented Indigenous communities and provided contractors for the civil construction and mining industries. He said governments and industry needed a more cohesive approach when dealing with First Nations land owners on new projects if future agreements were to occur.
"I think there's been a lot of progress made, and that progress in the main has come from industry," he said.
"They've been a lot more prepared to engage and have respectful conversations than what government has.
"I think the way government is structured in terms of what can it provide to Indigenous people who are engaged in discussion with the industry needs to be rejigged."
Mr Wolf said the "holy grail" for the Indigenous community is to have equity in projects.
"I understand there are capital needs that need to be addressed. For me we've got Indigenous Business Australia and a whole heap of other entities that are supposed to be helping Aboriginal people, and they've got billions of dollars and they're not doing anything with it. There's nothing meaningful there," he said.
"They should be getting behind these sort of [green] initiatives and going 'we're going to put money in' and help industry get to these green outcomes that we all want."
Mr Wolf said the fact Indigenous Business Australia offered housing loans was an example of missed opportunities in the Indigenous business space.
"There's a lot of groups out there that want to do something meaningful and cannot get the capital to do it," he said.
"So a project starts on someone's country and they say 'well we want to be a part of this', not just in terms of sitting there as a passive participant but an active participant.
"They should be able to access that capital so that their partners, the key stakeholders, have got comfort knowing that we can all go forward and the project's going to be sustainable."
