The mining sector is one of those major sectors which earns the Australian government a huge amount of income in various. There are many mining companies in Australia, and each of these companies are entitled to pay a certain amount of tax to the Australian government. These companies also employ many thousands of people who are supposed to pay some taxes to the government. Most of the mining companies produce different types of minerals which are used locally and some exported earning the government some extra income. Generally, we can say that there are many ways by which the Australian government benefit from the mining sector in the country (Mason, Paxton, Parsons, Parr, and Moffat, 2014, pp.1-8).
The performance of the mining industry in Australia is affected by many factors where some of the factors are influenced by the government and others are not by anyway affected by the government. These factors greatly determine how the mining industry will perform which consequently determines the profits generated by the mining companies. For any mining company to generate good profits and excel in its performance, it must understand the main factors which affect its performance and address them accordingly so that its performance won’t be limited by some of these factors (Horberry, Burgess-Limerick, and Steiner, 2016). In this report, we shall analyze the performance of the mining industry in Australia where we shall take RUS mining company as our example to help us understand the general performance of the mining companies in Australia. RUS mining company is one of the major mining companies and is normally mainly concerned in underground mining of coal (Drygin, Kurychkin, and Bakanov, 2017, p.03011). We shall consider some of the main major factors which affect the performance of this company and some of the measures which the company has taken to help in addressing these factors. We shall also discuss the contribution of the company to the Austrian knowledge. This entire discussion will equip us with a deep knowledge which will help us to understand the general performance of the mining industry in Australia.
The mining industry is one of the major sectors in the Australian government which earns the government a good amount of income. It’s also a major source of employment for many Australian people who have pursued different courses (Blackwell, Fischer, McFarlane, and Dollery, 2015, pp.263-278). Therefore, understanding the performance of the mining industry is highly relevant and highly important in our lives as students as we might find ourselves working in the mining industry in the future. Having understood the performance of the mining industry well, we’ll have a very smooth life when working in the industry (Bice, 2014, pp.62-80).
There are different factors which affect the performance of the Australia’s mining industry. Some of these factors have been a major problem to the industry since they limit the performance of the industry in various ways. Going to our specific mining company, RUS mining company, there are many factors which affect the performance of these company, and some of these factors have ended up limiting the growth and expansion of this company in a great way. The company has taken various measures to help in addressing some of these limiting factors, and good progress has been made in addressing them, although it has not been successful in addressing all the limiting factors (Fayol, 2016). Therefore, we can say that there are several factors which affect the performance of RUS mining company and the other mining companies in general, and some of these factors have ended up limiting the performance of the mining industry, and this is a major problem in the mining industry which needs to be addressed with the required attention for the mining industry to offer maximum benefits to the Australian government and citizens (O’faircheallaigh, 2017).
The main aim of this research is to help us understand the performance of the mining industry in details where we shall use RUS mining company in the research and this mining company will be satisfactory to represent the entire mining industry. The performance of the mining industry is very broad, but we are more interested in understanding the major factors which affect the mining industry and the major contributions of the mining industry to the people of Australia and the Australian government (Lodhia, 2014, pp.142-154). To meet our objectives, we shall gather the relevant secondary data from some credible online sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics which has a wide range of statistics and other credible sources which will give us the data of interest. The data of our concern will mainly be concerned with the performance or other useful information about RUS mining company.
The two major research questions of our research are:
What are the major factors which affect the performance of RUS mining company?
What are the major contributions of RUS mining company to the Australian government and the citizens in general?
In discussing the major factors which affect the performance of RUS mining company, we shall mainly focus on the major factors which limit the performance of the RUS mining company and the entire mining industry in Australia, and this will conform to our problem statement which was mainly concerned with the major factors which affect the mining industry of Australia limiting its growth and thus reducing the benefits earned by the Australian government from the mining industry. Discussing the major contributions of RUS mining company to the Australian government and to the citizens will help us to understand the general contributions of the mining industry to the citizens and the government of Australia, and this will help us to appreciate the great importance of the mining industry in our lives (Govindan, Kannan, and Shankar, 2014, pp.214-232). Therefore, taking RUS mining company as a case study in our paper will help to enhance our understanding of the entire mining industry of Australia, especially on the major factors which affect the performance of the industry and the major contributions of the industry to the Australian citizens and the government.
For the last few years, the mining industry in Australia has grown significantly (Syed, Grafton, Kalirajan, and Parham, 2015, pp.549-570). The income earned by the government from the industry has grown significantly, and many Australians have secured themselves different kinds of jobs in different Australian mining companies. Some of the major Australian mining companies which have been doing very well in the recent past include RUS Mining Company, Gold Fields Limited, Fortescue Company, Rio Tinto Company, UGM Australia, and Evolution Mining Company (Hosseinzadeh, Smyth, Valadkhani, and Le, 2016, pp.26-35). These companies have greatly improved their services in the last few years and have become very popular employing many thousands of Australians and earning the government a huge amount of revenue. Although the performance of these companies has constantly been improving, these companies have been faced by many challenges which greatly affect their performance negatively (Cheshire, Everingham, and Lawrence, 2014, pp.330-339). In this section of the literature review, we shall analyze some of the major factors affecting the performance of the mining industry lowering their performance. We shall also consider some of the major benefits of the mining industry to the citizens and the government of Australia. To cover this, we shall consider the performance of RUS mining company which will help us to understand the entire mining industry of Australia.
To start with the factors which affect the company’s performance, there are different factors which affect the performance of this company either directly or indirectly. Some of these factors have a positive impact which makes improves the performance of the company while other factors have a negative impact on the performance of the company. Some of the major factors which affect the performance of the company negatively lowering its performance include poor management of the company, high taxes imposed by the Australian government to the mining industry, the high costs of energy and being a company dealing with the mining of coal, RUS company requires a huge amount of energy, the running costs incurred by the company especially when paying its many employees where some of the employees are paid very high salaries due to their qualifications and experience, among many other factors. These factors have a great impact on the performance of the company and have been lowering the company making it fail to achieve its maximum potential (Mikesell and Whitney, 2017).
On the contributions of the company, RUS mining company is of great benefit to the Austrian government and the citizens in general. It has many benefits where some of the major benefits include earning the government a huge amount of income through the taxes paid to the government and earning the government some foreign exchange after exporting the coal. To the people, the company has employed many people and so is a source of livelihood to many Australian citizens. Also, the company observes corporate social responsibility duties, and so many of the people who live around the company enjoy different benefits from the company (Yakovleva, 2017). There are many other ways by which the company benefits the citizens of Australia, and so we can say that mining industry is very important to the lives of people, and so people should embrace it very positively (Perry and Rowe, 2015, pp.139-148).
Based on the information and literature above, we can formulate some good null and alternative hypotheses which will be addressed in the paper (Ary, Jacobs, Irvine, and Walker, 2018). The hypotheses developed are:
H0: The performance of the mining industry in Australia is not affected by any governmental or non-governmental factors.
H1: The performance of the mining industry in Australia is highly affected by some governmental or non-governmental factors.
H0: The performance of the mining industry of Australia doesn’t have any impact on the government and the lives of the people of Australia.
H2: The performance of the mining industry of Australia has a great impact on the government and the lives of the people of Australia.
We carried out detailed research to understand to our topic of the performance of the mining industry in Australia in details, and in the sections below, we shall give a detailed discussion of the entire research process and how it helped to address our research questions and fulfill the main objectives of the research.
The main aim of this research is to study the major factors which affect the performance of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry of Australia where we shall give special consideration to the major factors which limit the performance of the industry. The research will also analyze the contribution of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry to the government and the citizens of Australia. To achieve our aims, we shall gather the relevant secondary data from the relevant and credible resources such as the Australia Bureau of Statistics among other relevant and credible online resources. The data we’ll collect will help us to understand the performance of the mining industry and its contribution to the Australian government and citizens in details (Ivanova, 2014, pp.101-114).
After collecting the required data and information from the relevant and credible data sources, we will do a detailed analysis of the data to help us in fulfilling the aims of the research. We shall collect quantitative data, and thus we shall employ quantitative method of data analysis for us to have a deep understanding of our desired topic (Swart et al., 2015, pp.120-126). The kind of analysis which will be done to the collected data will be determined by the nature or type of the collected data. A good analysis of the collected data will help us to understand our topic well and thus prove the null hypothesis of the research wrong.
One thing we found in our critical literature review is that we have some major factors which affect the performance of the RUS mining company by lowering its performance. Among these factors were management problems, the costs of energy incurred by the company, the taxes paid by the company, the money spent on salaries, among other factors. These factors have played a great role in limiting the performance of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry in Australia.
To start with the management problems, just like many other mining companies and the other companies in general, RUS mining has faced serious management problems in the past, and most of these management problems result from some incompetent leaders in the company. These incompetent leaders have made many plans of the company to collapse, and this has resulted in serious challenges to the performance of the company pulling it down (Einarsen, Aasland, and Skogstad, 2016, pp.323-326). Management problems are serious problems facing the mining industry (most mining companies) in Australia and have ended up limiting the industry in a great way. Research has shown that more than 50% of the mining companies and the other companies in general face some management problems in their operations and these problems end up limiting their performance greatly.
The energy costs incurred by RUS mining company is another major factor which limits the performance of the company. Being a mining company which deals with the mining of coal, RUS mining company uses huge amounts of energy, and this huge amount of energy has made the company incur very high costs to be purchased. These high energy costs have ended up reducing the profits generated by the company, and thus reducing its performance. The cost of energy in Australia has been rising rapidly for the last few years, and these rising costs have forced the company to spend more funds in purchasing the energy required to maintain its operation, and this has been a major limitation to the performance of the company (Radcliffe, 2018, pp.66-85). From the statistics available in the Australia Bureau of Statistics, we learn that the costs of household electricity and household gas increased by 72% and 54% respectively between 2003 and 2013 and these prices continue to increase up to today. The costs of business electricity and business gas increased by 60% and 29% respectively in the same period, and these prices continue to increase up to today (Swoboda, 2014). These increasing prices of energy have limited the performance of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry greatly.
A graph showing the rising trends in the costs of energy in Australia is shown below:
The taxes paid by RUS mining company and the other mining companies in Australia has been another major factor affecting the performance of the mining industry in Australia. The taxes paid by RUS mining company and the other mining companies in Australia has been increasing annually, and these increasing taxes have ended up reducing the profits of the mining companies which in result affect the performance of the mining industry negatively.
A table showing the variation of the percentages of the total tax ratios paid by the mining companies in Australia is shown below:
|
Year |
2007-‘08 |
2008-‘09 |
2009-‘10 |
2010-‘11 |
2011-‘12 |
2012-‘13 |
|
% of total tax ratio |
42.1 |
40.6 |
42.1 |
39.8 |
43.2 |
47.1 |
A table of descriptive statistics shown below can be generated from the above tax data table
|
Variable |
Range |
Minimum |
Maximum |
Mean |
Median |
Mode |
Standard deviation |
|
% value |
7.3 |
39.8 |
47.1 |
42.48 |
42.1 |
42.1 |
2.38 |
The information shown it the table above can be represented by the bar graphs below:
Source: Mining tax ratios revisited pdf p.15
The taxes paid by the mining companies have been varying annually. However, one clear observation we can make is that the percentage of taxes has been increasing since 2010-11 and are expected to keep on increasing going by the trend shown by the bar graphs shown above (Richardson, 2015). These increasing taxes have impacted the performance of the mining industry in Australia negatively.
There are some other factors which affect the performance of the performance of the mining industry in Australia greatly, but the three factors discussed above are the major factors whose effect have been greatly felt by the mining industry.
After understanding the major factors which affect the performance of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry of Australia, it’s also good to discuss the significance or the contribution of RUS mining company and the entire mining industry of Australia. Firstly, RUS mining company offers employment to many Australians. The number of permanent employees in the company varies between 150 and 250, and the company employs many other casual workers at different times to offer different services. The company earns the Australian government some income by paying the taxes meant to be paid by the mining companies, and earns the government some more income whenever it exports some of its products. The company is also very important to other Australian companies as it offers a good market for their products and sells some of its products to the companies, and thus enhances local trading. There are many other benefits which the Australian government and the citizens enjoy from RUS mining company and the entire mining industry of Australia, and so the mining industry is very important to the country.
This section will compare the literature review and the findings we have found in the research, and this comparison will help us to prove the null hypothesis wrong and support the alternative hypothesis. In the literature review section, we saw that there are some major factors which affect the performance of the mining industry in Australia. Having carried out our research using RUS mining company in our research, we also found that there are some major factors which have a huge impact on the performance of the company and the entire mining industry. The three major factors which were found to affect the performance of the mining industry greatly are poor management, the high energy prices, and the high taxes charged by the government. Therefore, it’s clear that the findings of our research and our literature review agree that we have some major factors which affect the mining industry, and these factors affect the overall performance of the industry. To the impact of the mining industry on the government and the citizens of Australia, both the literature review and the findings of the research agree that the mining industry has a great impact on the government and the lives of the citizens of Australia. This agreement definitely means the performance of the mining industry has a great impact on the lives of the Australians, and so all the possible measures should be undertaken to ensure that the mining industry performs positively which will have some positive impacts on the Australian government and its citizens (O’Faircheallaigh, 2017, pp.206-230). The findings of our research and the critical literature review mean that we should take the alternative hypotheses as the correct scenarios. The alternative hypotheses of both cases are:
H1: The performance of the mining industry in Australia is highly affected by some governmental or non-governmental factors.
H2: The performance of the mining industry of Australia has a great impact on the government and the lives of the people of Australia.
These alternative hypotheses are true and represent the facts about the mining industry. They have been proved true by conducting the research and coming up with some findings which agree with the available literature review.
Conclusion and recommendations
Conclusion
From the entire discussion, we can learn that RUS mining company is of great importance in Australia and has many benefits to the country and the citizens of Australia as discussed above. RUS mining company is just a representation of all the other mining companies which means the mining companies or the mining industry is very important to the Australian government and the citizens. Therefore, the Australian government and the citizens should strive to offer a conducive environment for the mining industry to thrive for them to enjoy the many benefits which result from the industry (Perry and Rowe, 2015, pp.139-148).
The major recommendations which we can make from the research are:
The Australian government and citizens should offer their support to the mining industry to help it to thrive well.
The mining companies should try as much as possible to solve their management problems which limit their performance for them to perform well and be of great benefit to the country and the citizens.
The mining companies should strive to maintain a good relationship with the people surrounding them for them to get their support and become more successful.
There were several limitations to our research, and these limitations reduced the efficiency of the research. Some of the major limitations include:
The gathering of the required data. It was quite hard to collect all the required quantitative data since some of the data sources could not be accessed fully. However, we tried to overcome this limitation by gathering the available relevant data which could be accessed freely.
Another limitation of the research is that we considered only one mining company to represent the entire mining industry. This company gave us general knowledge information about the mining industry but it’s good to say that the information or the knowledge we gathered is not very satisfactory since there are very many mining companies in the mining industry and the performance of these many mining companies are affected by different factors.
References
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