The last year has seen a full rollout of the industry’s austerity obsession, an Ebenezer Scrooge-style stinginess that has rocked the services sector to its core.

This safe but exceedingly dull focus on shelling out dividends and paying off the mortgage has been eagerly embraced by those leading the most profligate lifestyles during the champagne years: Rio Tinto, Fortescue, BHP Billiton, etc.

It’s as if a big-spending racetrack gambler found religion, promising God to save his pennies and pay back creditors.

In mining’s bizarre world of late, God is the “investment community”, a stern-faced disciplinarian demanding regular sacrifices on the altar of capital management.

If confirmation was needed of miners’ total piety these days, look no further than Rio Tinto’s investor seminar last week, when chief financial officer Chris Lynch said that growth (i.e. developing mines) had slipped even lower on the company’s “capital allocation priorities”

A year ago, Rio said it would benchmark its growth projects against returning the cash to shareholders, a perfectly reasonable strategy and one that the likes of Wesfarmers had pursued for decades.

Last week though, Rio went a step further and “officially de-prioritised growth, relegating it to No.3 from No.1 in the hierarchy for use of funds,” UBS said in its enthusiastic response to the miner’s new crusade.

Essential sustaining capital expenditure is now the top priority for cash use, while progressive dividends rank second in the pecking order.

“Compelling growth” is next, but must still fight it out on the third tier with debt reduction and capital management to get the board’s blessing.

You have to wonder if Rio’s $20 billion Simandou iron ore venture in West Africa has a hope in hell of getting up any time soon if the board rigorously adheres to these new commandments.

UBS says the change of heart is great news, showing that Rio has been listening to its shareholders.

The Metal Detective acknowledges that Rio needed to change its ways after the bungled acquisitions and value destruction of the boom years.

But surely the reason people want to become miners in the first place is to find new orebodies and dig holes on top of them?

In big mining’s 2013 guise, Rio brags about exceeding its targeted $750 million cut in annual exploration and evaluation spending, while predicting the cuts will be sustained in “2014 and beyond”

If that’s not worrying enough for those of us who think exploration is mining’s life-blood, Bell Potter managing director Charlie Aitken argues that juniors and midcaps need to emulate their big brothers.

In a note last week, Aitken argued that smaller miners “simply aren’t giving Australian investors what they want”, i.e. dividends.

Of 1044 mining and energy stocks listed on the ASX, ranging from BHP down to small tenement holders, only 34 pay annual dividends and only 15 of them are fully franked, Aitken noted.

“That’s just appalling post a decade long commodities boom,” he said.

“Endlessly asking investors for capital and never giving it back is not sustainable and investors have voted with their feet,” he added.

Aitken concedes that mining and energy are capital intensive businesses, whose asset bases are depleted daily.

So investors aren’t expecting 80% dividend payout ratios, but the share of profits ending up in shareholder pockets needs to rise if the industry is to lure investors back into the fold, he said.

Hmm! MD reckons that message has already got through to those miners lucky enough to be in production, with BC Iron in particular this year’s poster boy for high dividend payouts.

But where does that leave juniors still looking for an infrastructure solution, or a half decent project?

It is pretty hard to pay dividends when you’re only source of cash is mining the share market.

Bell Potter’s solution is for juniors to at least show investors a “path”, such as guidance on future payout ratios.

MD wonders how long the market will stay fixated on dividends and cash when the penny drops with investors that the US economy is cranking up again.

Once China and the US get a head of steam – and there have been encouraging signs of late – punters will start seeking out good “growth” stories again to match an expected lift in commodities demand.

Greater financial discipline was needed after the excesses of the glory years, but bean counting and capital management initiatives won’t help us find the next generation of mines.

And the reality is that most investors punting on junior explorers aren’t in it for dividends, rather a big share price rocket from finding a mine.