AMMA president Richard Owen has said Australia’s resources and energy sector remain cautiously optimistic, as the industry group commemorated its 100th year at its AGM in Melbourne on May 25.
Owen, chairman of ExxonMobil Australia, said AMMA’s 2018 meeting drew strong parallels to the lobby group’s first annual meeting held in 1918.
“AMMA celebrates its 2018 Centennial Year at a time when some membership organisations are struggling for relevance due to hyper-connectivity, political concerns and cost pressures,” Owen told the AGM in his formal address.
“However, AMMA is getting on with the job and remains in an exceptionally strong position to continually improve value and service to members in 2018 and beyond.
“There is no doubt that as we celebrate this significant milestone Australia’s resources and energy employers are experiencing a time of transformative change
“Within this backdrop, the consistent themes among companies that make up AMMA’s membership have been resilience, transformation and cautious optimism.”
AMMA’s first AGM was held in Melbourne in 1918, and was hosted by first president G.C. Klug, a mining identity who forged his career in Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill.
Klug, general manager of mining firm Bewick, Moreing and Company at the time, told the AMMA’s first AGM: “The world must bend its energies to the reweaving of the industrial fabric, and the readjustment and improvement of the relations between employer and employed, involving a careful and complete survey of the industrial position, and compelling a united and general effort to re-establish our industries on such a footing as will conduce to their preservation and expansion, the promotion of a better spirit between capital and labour, and contentment amongst the workers.”