Rhetoric and Strategy: Australian Mining and the Conflict over Coronation Hill

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper considers the political mobilisation of the mining industry in response to increasing levels of popular concern regarding environmental issues. The focus is upon the rhetoric used by mining companies in their endeavour to gain government permission to mine Coronation Hill in Australia's Northern Territory. In order to ensure profitability mining companies will individually and collectively undertake political activities. In recent years a growing awareness of environmental degradation and a wave of popular concern for protecting the environment has left Australian mining companies worrying that their perceived right to exploit the environment is threatened. This is especially so for an industry so reliant on extracting resources from the natural environment. The mining industry has responded to this political challenge by developing various forms of rhetoric to justify its continued exploitation, and indeed degradation, of the natural environment.