@DavidPocock please don’t frame this as only impacting tech startups.
Remember the smaller exploration companies in WA that collectively spend billions of dollars in Australia. We are startups too.
At
@BenzMining alone, we’re investing over $100 million in exploration in Western Australia. That directly employs 20 geologists and supports countless indirect jobs through drilling contractors, laboratories, transport providers, administration staff, accountants, bookkeepers, and local suppliers—including Indigenous-owned businesses.
Like many early-stage companies, we can’t compete with major mining companies on salary alone, so we use share-based incentives to attract and retain talent. That only works if there is a meaningful upside for employees taking that risk.
Beyond employment, companies like ours contribute throughout the economy. We pay stamp duty on tenement acquisitions, payroll tax on local employment, ASX listing fees, brokerage fees that support financial services jobs across Australia, and substantial spending with contractors and service providers.
We generate no operating income at this stage—our business is funded through equity capital because exploration is inherently high risk. The investors who fund that risk do so because there is potential for capital growth, and when they realise gains, they pay capital gains tax.
That cycle of investment, employment, and tax contribution happens every day.
If you remove the incentive for investors to fund high-risk exploration, that ecosystem slows dramatically. Capital will move elsewhere, projects won’t proceed, and Australian jobs will be lost.
High-risk exploration already has enough uncertainty. We do not need the government effectively becoming a 47% partner in the upside while contributing none of the entrepreneurial risk that gets these projects off the ground.