Good morning
ladies and gentlemen, and may I thank you for inviting me once again to address
your conference. I would first like to welcome you all, especially international
delegates and conference speakers. It's a pleasure to be with you all and I hope
that you have the time to enjoy the many beautiful sights that the Coromandel
and
Bay
of
Plenty
have to offer.

Holding your conference in Waihi
is particularly apt, especially bearing in mind the conference theme - 'Mining
in the Community'. There can be few venues in the world that can boast a world
class gold deposit of the likes of Martha Hill located right here in the centre
of a rural service town. It's a deposit that has a mining history active now in
its third century and that to date has yielded some 7.5 million ounces of gold
and 50 million ounces of silver. I doubt that when John McCombie and Robert Lee
discovered gold at Martha Hill in 1878 that they had any inkling that their
endeavours would be the foundation for a mine that would become such an
inseparable part of the economic and social fabric of Waihi for the next 130
years.

This is now my fifth appearance
at a
New Zealand
minerals conference, I especially value
such occasions as it allows me to comment on your industry's performance over
the past year, share my thoughts on matters affecting your industry, and also to
give you some feedback from central government.