There’s a clue to the double-edged nature of resources politics buried in the share-price red and green of the Australian stock exchange.
Since Tanya Plibersek, the environment minister, used Indigenous cultural heritage powers in mid-August to reject the location of a tailings dam at the site of the McPhillamys goldmine project near Blayney in the New South Wales central west, there’s been a deluge of protest from proponents Regis Resources, the wider mining industry and the federal Coalition.
