Ronald Brown Manners , (born 8 January 1936) is an Australian businessman. He is the founder and formerly the chairman of Croesus Mining, at one point Australia's third largest gold producer. He is currently the executive chairman of Mannwest Group and founder and chairman of the

Mannkal Economic Education Foundation The Mannkal Economic Education Foundation is a free market think tank headquartered in Perth, Western Australia.Francis ThorntonManners' good work benefits students ''Kalgoorlie Miner'', February 9, 2012 Location The think tank is located at 3 ...

, an Australian free-market think tank.Mannkal biography
/ref> Manners was one of the founders of the Workers Party, subsequently known as the Progress Party, and is a co-founder of ANDEV (Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision), a lobby group chaired by co-founder

Gina Rinehart Georgina Hope Rinehart (née Hancock, born 9 February 1954) is an Australian mining magnate and businesswoman. Rinehart is the Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a privately owned mineral exploration and extraction company founded by h ...

. Manners' contribution to the mining industry earned him induction into the Australian Mining Hall of Fame in 2011. Manners was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to the minerals and mining sectors, and to youth through philanthropic support for educational initiatives," and in 2021 was nominated for the 2021 WA Senior Australian of the Year Award.

Biography

Early life

Ron Manners was born in 1936 in

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

, Australia, to a family that had a long association with the mining town. His grandfather, W.G. Manners, the son of a Ballarat prospector, headed

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

in the late 19th century and established a mining and engineering business, W.G. Manners & Co, in 1895. Ron Manners studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

Kalgoorlie School of Mines Western Australian School of Mines (WASM) was founded in 1902 as the ''Kalgoorlie School of Mines'' It was a tertiary school specialising in subjects directly related to the Western Australian mining industry. Originally located in Coolgardie, ...

.Rania Spooner
Rebranding the mining industry
'' SMH'', 15 November 2011

Career in mining

In 1955, Manners assumed management of the family business.Ronald B. Manners
''

Bloomberg BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' He expanded and diversified the company which became the Mannwest Group. He serves as its executive director. Between 1972 and 1995, he floated several Australian listed mining companies. In 1985, he founded Croesus Mining NL, a gold mining company. He served as its Chairman from 1985 to 2005. While chairman, the company produced 1.275 million ounces of gold and paid 11 dividends. He has also served as Non Executive Chairman of De Grey Mining Ltd. He is Emeritus Chairman, patron of the Australian Prospectors & Miners' Hall of Fame, inducted in 2011 as a " living legend". He also served as Executive Councillor of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC). He is a Fellow of both the

Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) provides services to professionals engaged in all facets of the global minerals sector and is based in Carlton, Victoria, Australia. History The Institute had its genesis in 1893 with ...

and the

Australian Institute of Company Directors The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) is a non-profit membership organization for directors. The AICD is a founding member of the Global Network of Director Institutes (GNDI). History The origins of the AICD can be traced ba ...

. He was elected "mining legend" at the 2005 Excellence in Mining & Exploration Conference in Sydney. In 2012, he defended

against

Wayne Swan Wayne Maxwell Swan (born 30 June 1954), often colloquially referred to as Swanny, is an Australian politician who is National President of the Labor Party. He was previously the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Deputy Leader of the Labor ...

in her bid to invest in

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

. Manners was made an Officer of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(AO) in the

2020 Australia Day Honours The 2020 Australia Day Honours are appointments to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by Australian citizens. The list was announced on 26 January 2020 by the Governor General of Australia, David Hurley. The Australia ...

for "distinguished service to the minerals and mining sectors, and to youth through philanthropic support for educational initiatives," and in 2021 was nominated for the 2021 WA Senior Australian of the Year Award.

Other activity

A proponent of the

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...

, he founded the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation in 1997. He is a member and director of the

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) is an international organization composed of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals and business leaders.Michael Novak, 'The Moral Imperative of a Free Economy', in '' The 4% Solution: Unleashing the E ...

and is on the Co-ordinating Committee for the

Commonwealth Study Conference The first Commonwealth Study Conference held in Oxford, United Kingdom in 1956 to study the human aspects of industrial issues across Commonwealth countries. The founder of the conference, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, described it as "an extra ...

. In 2010 he was appointed to the Board of Overseers for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Bibliography

;As author * ''Mannerisms (1985-2020)'' (2020) * ''The Lonely Libertarian'' (Turning Ideas Into Gold—Then Gold Into Ideas) (2019) * ''Heroic Misadventures'' (Australia: Four Decades-Full Circle) (2009) . * ''Never a Dull Moment'' (with Charles Manners and Nancy Manners) (2002) . * ''Poems of Passion (1979-2020)'' (self published poems, 2020) . ;As editor * ''Kanowna's barrowman: James Balzano, 1859-1948: the early history of Kalgoorlie's goldrushes'' (with George Compton) (1993) . * ''So I Headed West – W.G. Manners'' (1992) .

References

External links

Mannkal Economic Education Foundation

Mannwest Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manners, Ron Living people 1936 births People from Kalgoorlie People from Perth, Western Australia Australian prospectors Australian chief executives Australian libertarians Australian writers Fellows of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Officers of the Order of Australia