Charles Roche, executive director at the Mineral Policy Institute in Australia, spoke to Sowetan outlining how it had gone about in regulating its mining industry.

He was one of the speakers at the conference, held at the Sandton Convention Centre, organised by the South African Mining Development Association.

Roche said that mining in Australia was privately owned.

He said mining contributed 43percent of Australia's exports.

"Mining is regulated in that the mineral belongs to the state but when it is mined it belongs to a mining company," he said.

He said in return for the mineral the mining companies pay royalties to government but this took a knock when mining firms started making big profits.

"Commodity prices went up and mining companies started making these large profits in which royalties were such a low portion of their gain," he said.

Australia's major minerals are iron ore and coal, while copper, zinc and uranium are also found in certain parts of the country.

Roche said during the boom, mining salaries increased to the extent that a teacher would leave his job to drive a mine truck.

"There was a skills shortage in the mining sector. The sector increased salaries to attract people.

"The biggest challenge was that the mining companies made large profits that did not translate into benefiting the man in the street."

He said former prime minister Kevin Rudd tried in June to introduce the super profit tax so that the state would get more. That cost him his job.

"The new prime minister, Julia Gilliard, changed the structure of the tax to focus just on coal and iron ore," said Roche.

He said nationalisation of mines was not a debate in Australia because only four percent of its population is indigenous.

Roche said most of the Australians were "fine" with the way government is involved in mining but some still wanted to see better regulation and control of the sector.