IT WOULDN'T be a Diggers & Dealers bash without Brian Hurley giving government a lashing for not supporting the minerals exploration industry.

According to Hurley, the chairman of the D&D Forum, as it is properly known, the lack of exploration in Australia is a "threat to our way of life". It does not matter that the industry is enjoying boom conditions. Conditions that seasoned campaigner Hurley says is not a bubble, but the real thing.

Annoyed that Canberra again knocked back the type of flow-through schemes that have worked a treat in Canada, Hurley reckons there is a "conspiracy in Australia to stop us finding ore bodies and developing mines".

"Not only do we have red tape, we have green tape and black tape as well. It is time consuming, wasteful of resources and downright frustrating going through all the hoops being imposed," he said.

Various speakers later in the day were asked if things were all that bad. None was prepared to go as hard as Hurley, after acknowledging that there are some land access issues. But there was general agreement that life here for explorers is a whole lot better than in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mighty Ox plans to beef up

A TYPICALLY upbeat spiel from Oxiana's Owen Hegarty at midday worked wonders in waking up those delegates who were struggling with life after doing their best to turn Kalgoorlie into a party town on Sunday night. Not seen, on day one at least, was Teck Cominco president Don Lindsay. Slotted to kick things off in the morning, Lindsay's spiel was moved. Fair enough, given he has come all the way from Canada.

We mention Hegarty and Lindsay together because Teck just happens to be the company that Oxiana has long believed is the most likely to make a takeover bid for it. Teck is busy with its bid for nickel giant Inco, part of the merger and acquisition frenzy in the North American mining market.

It's a fair bet that Lindsay has things other than Hegarty's "Mighty Ox" on his mind. But it wouldn't be a Diggers & Dealers without a takeover rumour to liven things up.

Having said that, Hegarty is not standing still waiting for a bid. "We're hard at the ball every day, with the very modest vision of becoming Australia's next major mining house," Hegarty said.

Golden egg helps free Range

BUSTLING Michael Beer from Queen Street-based Range River Gold was a happy boy at the conference. And it had nothing to do with Beer having the odd, er, beer or two.

He was pumped because Range has just poured first gold from its new $10 million Indee gold mine in the Pilbara. The mine is set to produce up to 35,000 ounces of gold annually. Apart from boasting rights at the conference, Range also gets to take full advantage of the strong gold price as it starts out as an unhedged gold producer.

Range holds some 80 kilometres of the Mallina shear zone area and is confident that over time, it will be able to add to the resource base and make Indee a long-lived project.

Where there's smoke, there's fire

SMOKERS are proving to be among the fittest at this year's D&D's bash. Because of Western Australia's ban on smoking in bars, the smokers find themselves puffing on the pavement — minus a drink in hand, which the desperadoes inside have been downing at frightening speed.

Among those on the pavement has been Chris Bonwick, managing director of Independence Group. The group's nickel operations have been going gangbusters, allowing Independence to fund a $12 million exploration program — one of the biggest you'll find for a company of its size. The prospect that Bonwick is particularly keen on is Tropicana, 400 kilometres

east-north-east of Kalgoorlie.

It's shaping up as a new gold province, with 70 per cent partner AngloGold Ashanti just as keen on the prospect. Richard Duffy, AngloGold's business development officer, told the conference that his company reckons Tropicana

has the "potential for a multimillion-ounce (gold) deposit in this new region".

A full feasibility study into a development could be done in 2008.

The reporter owns Oxiana shares.