[citation needed] In 2002, years of exploration around Australia and overseas were paying dividends and the Newcrest group was capitalised at over $2 billion.

Gold mining provided transportation, communication, road and rail and raw material for export around the colonies.

This development, together with Australia's political stability, led to an influx of major overseas mining companies, such as Newmont, in the 1960s.

In the 1990s, there was a period of consolidation with extensive focus on further improving efficiency and safety of operations and movement towards globalization; customers of minerals and metals became more diverse.

During this period, the industry continued to be a major source of export income for the Australian economy, despite far-reaching changes in world mineral production and consumption patterns.

India and China recently became the top importers of Australian gold because it continues to function extremely well as an inflation hedge.

Furthermore, environmental and social concerns in relation to the mining industry have become global with the widespread uptake of new communication technologies.

From a corporate perspective, the Australian mining industry grew beyond being a large national sector into a world player.

The industry is now diversified and integrated internationally through its exploration, mining and processing activities, and the supply of information technology, engineering, construction and other services.

Annual surveys by the Minerals Council of Australia show that from the mid- to late 1990s, respondents spent over 40% of their total exploration budgets overseas.

The industry is also making a wide range of major investments in overseas mines and forging international marketing and processing alliances in regard to many minerals and metals.

Hidden Valley is an open-pit, gold-silver mine and processing plant in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

Feed for the Saganoseki Smelter and Refinery is transported to Japan's southernmost island, Kyushu, and the concentrate is turned into 99.99% pure gold bullion which is sold to Asia's metal market.

In August 2019, Newcrest acquired 70% of the Red Chris operation in a joint venture with Imperial Metals.

[17][18] The company has been accused of human rights violations and accelerating environmental damage particularly on Halmahera Island in Indonesia.