General News
8 September, 2025
Finding solutions front of mind at Meeting of the Mines conference
Top mining and government representatives will converge on Cloncurry this week for the third annual Meeting of the Mines.
Top mining and government representatives will converge on Cloncurry this week for the third annual Meeting of the Mines.
To be held on Thursday and Friday, guest speakers will include representatives from local mining operations including Eva Copper and Evolution Mining, State Government departmental heads, and state and federal government MPs and senators.
Cloncurry Shire mayor Greg Campbell said this year’s overarching theme is finding broader solutions to existing problems when it comes to mining in North West Queensland.
“The conference aims to bring miners, politicians – being the policymakers – the bureaucrats, all together with local government, who represents the community, to get solutions to these problems, so that mining can continue strongly and sustainably and we can see the direct benefits in our community,” Cr Campbell said.
“Generally, all of the proponents are able to tell the elected people directly all of the policy constraints – whether that’s around water or environmental bonds – that are affecting them.”
Discussion panels will go in-depth about topics including water, common-use infrastructure, energy policy, mine closures, and phosphate and the Port of Karumba.
Cr Campbell will take part in the water discussion panel to go over how a potential new entity focused solely on using the Cloncurry area’s water resources can become an economic enabler in the future.
Government representatives will include federal Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King, state Natural Resources and Mines Minister Dale Last, Senator Anthony Chisholm, Senator Susan McDonald, and state Member for Traeger Robbie Katter.
Meeting of the Mines began in 2022 as a way of bringing the sort of mining conferences normally held in larger coastal cities to the heart of the action in the North West Minerals Province.
“If a miner or an explorer had a project in the Cloncurry Shire, or even the North West more broadly, they used to have to go to Sydney, the Gold Coast, or Kalgoorlie to go to a mining conference to talk about their project,” Cr Campbell said.
“We want projects that are centred here to be able to be highlighted here, and our community can see how much is going on directly as well.”
He praised the quality of the speakers at this year’s event, including Neville Power from Omnia Company, who was the keynote speaker at the first Meeting of the Mines; Evolution Mining Chief Operating Officer Matt O’Neill; Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation Director-General Patricia O’Callaghan; and Sunwater CEO Glenn Stockton.
“The standard is next level. I think the people that are coming shows how important and how needed a conference like this is,” he said.
“The quality of the political representation, as well as our state and federal MPs, it shows that it’s starting to be realised that if we want to genuinely support the copper smelter – which in turn genuinely supports the refinery in Townsville – we need to come back to where the copper is and the copper in the ground is in the Cloncurry region.”
Celebrity chef Miguel Maestre will host a conference dinner on Thursday night that will highlight the high-quality beef produced in the Cloncurry region.