Herd at Diggers: Conference begins with a bosom bust, plus gold old boys Beament and Finlayson in fine form

A Sunday bosom bust, Bill Beament and Raleigh Finlayson back at their best, and more Mineral Resources mania dominates the latest iteration of Diggers & Dealers. Mammary mayhem Kalgoorlie may be the Wild West, but there’s still an almighty sheriff that rules the town — the WA Liquor Commission. The Commission’s might was on full display at the infamous the Exchange Hotel on the eve of Diggers’ official start. Uninitiated Diggers operatives were blushing upon hearing that a barmaid at the Exchange had disrobed her upper half on the Sunday night. These sorts of rituals usually take place in exchange for legal tender from a male (or female, let’s not be sexist folks) attendee of the mining conference. Unfortunately, the Hotel — unlike a few other venues in the vicinity — did not possess the correct liquor trading licence to facilitate such an educational display of human anatomy. And word somehow made its way back to the Sheriff. A few of the boys in blue subsequently paid an urgent visit to the Hotel to ensure the anatomy lesson was over and the barmaid’s bust returned to a slightly more covered state. “Police in attendance of a licensed premises in Kalgoorlie discussed the interpretation of an extended trading permit with the venue,” a WA Police spokeswoman said. That’s one way to put it. Old habits die hard Bill Beament is one of the great success stories of Australia’s mining industry — building Northern Star Resources up from a penny dreadful to the country’s biggest gold company. We’re told Bill was a prominent fixture at the various Diggers-related nighttime networking events for a number of years while at the helm of Northern Star. But after cutting ties with the gold miner and transitioning to the more worldly and woke realm of green metals — the Cottesloe resident has faded from nocturnal folklore in recent years. So, it was refreshing to see Bill returning to his roots after being spotted entering one of Kal’s most famous watering holes just as Tuesday night ticked over to Wednesday morning. Golden boys Can someone please get Amanda Lacaze back to Diggers next year to sort these rowdy gold boys out. Trying to line up pictures of chairman Jim Walker with Mr Kalgoorlie Raleigh Finlayson heckling the conference chairman from about 10 metres away was quite something to attendees in earshot. “Give us a bigger smile” were the cut and thrust of the barrage of jibes across the Goldfields Arts Centre courtyard, in an interaction akin to a WA School of Mines student winding up his teacher. Appropriate given Jim had planned to be a teacher before he got his big break with WesTrac. Thankfully Jim saw the funny side, or Ral might have been relegated to Diggers detention presenting Genesis Minerals slides to the peanut gallery again. MinRes media men keep busy Of all the weeks Mineral Resources’ battered PR soldiers might be able to catch a break it would be Diggers. After a year of being bombarded with media questions related to the various indiscretions of its dear leader Chris Ellison and the company’s laundry list of operational hiccups, a bit of peace and quiet was on the cards. Practically all of the State’s resources journos were locked up in a media pen, distracted by presentations, PR pitches and fleeting Ministerial visits for a whole three days. But plans for peace and quiet were thrown out the window when Justin Langer resigned as a non-executive director of MinRes on the final day of Diggers. Despite having no presence at the Diggers, stealing the show is no new feat for MinRes — during last year’s event it decided to sack 100 white-collar workers. There’s simply no rest for the wicked.