Resources Minister Martin Ferguson announced yesterday the government would lock in $34 million in 2013-2014 and $40 million every year thereafter to fund a range of ongoing activities at Geoscience Australia.
Of this, about $26 million per annum will be allocated to Geoscience Australia’s pre-emptive data program to improve knowledge of Australia’s resource base.
Another $5 million, increasing to $8 million in 2014-15, will be used to enhance groundwater modelling capabilities to better assess the long-term health of the Murray-Darling Basin and other regions.
In addition, $3 million increasing to $6 million in 2014-15 will be allocated towards a natural disaster planning and response program.
Ferguson said understanding Australia’s resource potential was important in securing domestic energy security and developing Australia’s energy resources.
“From the work of Geoscience Australia we can apply what we learn to develop our unconventional gas potential, assess our groundwater storage and identify geothermal and carbon capture and storage sites,” he said.
AMEC chief executive Simon Bennison said the funding over the forward estimates would help in developing valuable pre-competitive geoscience data.
Bennison referred to a federal government report released in May last year following a review of Geoscience Australia, which confirmed the value of the agency’s work to the ongoing exploration of Australia’s natural resources.
“Today highlights the importance of the agency to the national repository of acquired geoscience information, and the nation’s economy,” Bennison said.
“It is a great step forward to have funding committed to research that will enhance exploration data and AMEC is pleased to see the federal government has heard the requests made by AMEC and the industry.”
However, Bennison said exploration companies were still in need of capital investment to bring projects to fruition.
“More needs to be done now to encourage such investment flowing through to Australian exploration projects and AMEC again calls on the federal government to implement an Exploration Tax Credit model recommended in the AMEC Policy Platform,” he said.
