NEW South Wales must be seen as a resource state if it has any chance of cashing in on the Mineral Resources Rent Tax and Singleton must have projects ready to go now.

This is the view of the NSW Minerals Council vice president Sue-Ern Tan.

Speaking to The Singleton Argus, Ms Tan said the high profile of Queensland and Western Australia in the resources industry was likely to give them a greater share of the infrastructure funding.

It is a view she has already shared with industry.

At a recent AusIMM meeting in the Hunter Valley, Ms Tan made her views clear.

“It is imperative that the NSW Government takes a pro-active approach to ensure that the people of New South Wales benefit from the additional revenue and promised investment in regional infrastructure which will arise from the MRRT,” Ms Tan told the gathering.

“In order to achieve an adequate share of the MRRT Infrastructure Fund and to avoid a repeat of the poor outcomes for NSW from the Infrastructure Australia process, the NSW Government needs to prepare detailed, costed proposals for priority projects,” she said.

She said industry was actively engaging with the state government, local councils and allied business groups to ensure that New South Wales did two things.

The first was to ensure NSW begins to be recognised internally and externally as a resource state and secondly, to ensure a fair return comes back to New South Wales for the contribution the mining industry makes to federal treasury.

Ms Tan said she had genuine concern for towns like Singleton and said industry recognised it had an impact on local infrastructure.

“We give $1billion to state government and that gets put into consolidated revenue while places impacted by coal mining are screaming for infrastructure.

“We are not talking swimming pools, we are talking infrastructure,” she said.

Projects ideal to tap into the funding are projects like the Singleton bypass but without any recognition by the state government that such projects are even necessary, they have no chance of going ahead.

Bengalla Exhibition

THE exhibition of the modification of Bengalla Coal Mine closes on Christmas Eve.

For full details on the proposal and to submit a submission online go to http://majorprojects.planning.nsw .gov.au or the proposal can be view at Muswellbrook Council.