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So if the industry is in desperate need of a new wave of qualified staff, whose job is it to foster the skills needed to fill the void? The regional and federal governments of Australia must play a leading role, according to the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA).

In October 2011, the industry body issued an urgent call for state governments to introduce a raft of new training initiatives to make up the shortfall.

Indeed, many government-sponsored programmes are now underway. 2011 brought the announcement that the federal government would be channelling A$200 million into a Critical Skills Investment Fund created to fund training and employment initiatives in the resources industry, among other vital sectors.

The Queensland state government has invested heavily in training programmes and publicity for the mining sector, launching an advertising campaign imploring young Queenslanders to 'grab a piece of the resources boom'.

AMMA director Minna Knight has praised Queensland for spearheading new expos and training opportunities, but warned that in Queensland and Western Australia, state recruitment drives would only fill half the available mining positions in the coming years.

Fostering skills: the industry's equally important role

By lumping the burden of recruitment on to the government, however, there is a sense that the Australian mining industry is shirking its own responsibilities as a mass employer, leveraging its importance to regional and national economies to avoid its own job as a nurturer of industry-specific skills.

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney struck back at the industry in late 2011, telling ABC News 24 that it has not sufficiently invested in skills.

'They are not training apprentices, they are not training their workers,' she said. 'For years they have neglected this important part of their responsibility as an employer.'

After all, there is little that can be accomplished by government programmes if mining companies fail to give new starters the chances they need.

This is exactly what happened in October 2011, when Xstrata refused to allocate six apprenticeships at its Mangoola coal mine, claiming that it had failed to find suitable, 'job ready' candidates.

Muswellbrook mayor Martin Rush, whose council had offered to permanently pay for two of the apprenticeships, described the company's apprenticeship efforts as 'pitiful'.

Queensland and Western Australia partner up on recruitment

Some non-government recruitment initiatives have provided a model of how the industry can collaborate to encourage a new skilled workforce to step into the Australia's labour breach.

Industry groups in Western Australia and Queensland announced in May 2011 that they would partner to work on strategies to meet their labour objectives.

Under the three-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Western Australia (CME), the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) and SkillsDMC agreed to work together to create a more consistent, targeted recruitment effort.

'Industry must position itself to minimise the impact of a retiring workforce, and one that is not currently upskilled to levels that are crucial to industry productivity,' said SkillsDMC chief executive Steve McDonald.

With Australia's mining skills crisis becoming more desperate with each passing year, policies to incentivise the immigration of skilled mine workers from countries like the US, Canada and Poland are picking up steam.

If Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's goal to reserve Australian mining jobs for Australian workers is to be met, it seems the industry must shed its sense of entitlement and join the government in investing the time and money required to foster the next generation of mining professionals.

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