While Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory are all battling to outdo each other in incentivising resources exploration, Victoria suffers on several fronts, which sees it languish in the all-important but often superficial investor perception.

The idea that its geology is well understood (recently found to be the furthest thing from the truth), community pushback in some areas, prescriptive regulations, stifling green and red tape and a plethora of parliamentary and departmental enquiries and reviews that seem to go nowhere have all put a big "no-go zone" sign up in investors' and explorers' minds.

The state's regulations have also lagged behind the rest of the country. Industry says they are prescriptive rather than risk-based - seemingly a no-brainer given exploration by its very nature is high-risk - and do not allow for continual improvement in innovation.

For a glimpse into the issues, the Minerals Council of Australia Victoria division's submission on the regulatory impact statement and draft Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Regulations noted: "The fact that approvals are taking longer and longer with more and more information that is not material to a project [being] sought demonstrates that there are significant inefficiencies in the system.

"A comparison with fees in New South Wales shows clearly that the total annual average cost of a mining licence held for 10 years in Victoria is approximately 30% higher across licence areas and if a realistic assumption of significantly more than one work plan variation was included, the total fee would be vastly greater."

Added to this, Victoria's overall exploration expenditure in 2012-13 decreased substantially from 2011-12.

Total exploration expenditure was down $19.8 million (33.9%); New deposit (greenfields) exploration expenditure was down $21.4 million (63.1%); Existing deposit (brownfields) exploration expenditure was up $1.5 million (6.1%); Victoria now has the lowest greenfields spend in Australia ($4.1 million less than Tasmania); and Victoria's overall spend was also the lowest ($1.9 million less than Tasmania).

But with recent geological collaboration with other eastern states and Geoscience Australia (see cover story), a new resources department head and "red tape commissioner" and a co-funding scheme launched, among other things, even the most sceptical industry heads are starting to raise their eyebrows at an undeniable positive trend.

Red tape commissioner John Lloyd - who has a strong background in construction, workplace and industrial relations, including as Australian Building and Construction Commission chief - got off to a great start in January.

MCA lauded his first tranche of reforms in January around Crown land used for vegetation, bonds for land rehabilitation by instalment, return of bonds for land rehabilitation and providing mining information online - the last of which was a particularly long-overdue reform.

As part of the reform package, the Victorian government also pledged to change the state's negative investment perception by announcing it would spend $31.7 million over the next four years on programs designed to build and sustain the mining sector.

In assessing Victoria's latest efforts for this International Mining and Resources Conference preview and what the state still needs to do to regain the stellar mining reputation it once had, MCA Victoria executive director Megan Davison said that while Lloyd's January announcement was consistent with recommendations from other enquiries into the sector, "we don't seem to have a process that directs implementation and measures performance"

"We still have prospective geology. That's not a limiting factor. The issue is the duplicative [nature] and delays in the regulatory environment.

"Certainly in the last couple of years there have been positive signals coming out of government and in the budget processes and some of the policy decisions.

"The fact is that in Victoria we've been mining gold for 160 years, so all those quick wins and shallow deposits have gone but the Geological Survey still thinks there are tens of millions of ounces of gold north of Bendigo under cover. So obviously the issue is technology and cost.

"[The challenge will be] the ability to attract investment to do some of that high-investment risk work when other countries may be more rewarding for shareholders."

Geoff McDermott, managing director of Australian Securities Exchange-listed Navarre Minerals, which is targeting giant porphyry copper and gold deposits in western Victoria, has also noticed a distinct improvement, both in the geological and regulatory fronts.

"I've seen a significant change over the last 12-15 months," McDermott said.

"There has been a new leader driving the Geological Survey of Victoria in Anthony Hurst and I'm finding that things are really starting to open up.

"They're starting to become investment friendly, particularly through GeoScience Victoria (GSV) and Geoscience Australia investing into geological data.

"They've found their mojo again and are back doing what they do best - promoting areas like the Miga Arc where we're currently exploring.

"They have a 16 to 18-hole drill program over 12 months to generate information here.

"They've just come out with this TARGET program to co-sponsor significant drilling programs and geophysics programs. These are very positive moves and we can see the Victorian government is starting to diversify out of gold into copper.

"So there are opportunities here and it's an exciting time for us, given this change in focus."

The TARGET program was the Victorian government's 2014-15 budget commitment to co-fund exploration work with companies searching for new mineral resources with a focus on the state's northeast, north, west and parts of the east.

Hurst was appointed as executive director of Earth Resource Development, under which sits GSV and Minerals Development Victoria.

GSV senior geologist Ross Cayley described Hurst as "very proactive and industry-engaged" - along with GSV director Paul McDonald.

"They've got great [geological] data now and have really engaged management and that's really starting to change the perception of the state," Cayley said.

"We've been building progressively over quite a few years to finally get to a story which is now quite well supported and has a lot of data behind it so it can stand up to intense scrutiny."

However, the community remains a challenge and this is affecting not only mining but hydrocarbons, which is nearing crisis point in terms of a looming gas shortage.

Victoria sources much of its gas from the Cooper Basin across the South Australian border but Victoria itself has significant reserves.

The state's mining and hydrocarbon sectors are linked, at least in the minds of some sections of the community. One junior explorer executive told RESOURCESTOCKS that "if you say you're a geologist they straight away think you're involved in coal seam gas", which is a dirty business if you ask the likes of the Lock the Gate Alliance.

A moratorium on hydraulic stimulation, or fraccing, has been in place in Victoria since 2012, yet a Victorian parliamentary research paper this year said the Gippsland and Otway basins held the greatest potential for unconventional gas. Tight gas has been located near Seaspray in Gippsland but is not yet being produced.

"Victorians in the main have lost their connection to the mining industry - even though the cities of Melbourne, Bendigo, Ballarat and Stawell were all founded on the gold rush of the 1850s and the fact also that we've had access to cheap, reliable energy through the brown coalfields," Davison said.

"There is an assumption that we no longer have a mining industry, but the mining industry in Victoria is still about 2% of gross state product, which is just shy of that of agriculture.

"I do think that the minerals industry can be out of sight, out of mind - it's regional and rural and very rarely evident to communities in those areas, but the broader population -the 4.5 million in Melbourne metro - probably don't have that connection or awareness.

"It's about numbers in the political space but we also find there is a very small vocal minority actively against the minerals industry, very much initially focused on fossil fuels all the way up and down the east coast.

"Yet government and industry polling has shown that there are far more concerning issues that landholders have, such as access to market, cost of utilities, regulatory constraints, jobs, facilities and services.

"The potential for the minerals industry to assist with on-farm and off-farm income and regional economic development is well known in those areas, for a very long time.

"It's the fear of the unknown, with a lot of information in social media and the internet broadly over the last decade there has been an exponential increase in opinion, which is great, but unfortunately the science and facts get crowded out.

"There is a role for government - elected officials - to inform constituents of demand and supply needs of energy, [for example] where would it come from if we didn't produce it ourselves.

"In particular gas: 40% of gas is not used for energy consumption energy, it's a feedstock into manufacturing.

"So that gets confused with the climate change debate - that these resources are not only used for power generation but important feedstocks into other industrial sectors that are critical to the economy, like manufacturing and agriculture."

"It's a shame when governments across the nation make decisions that are not in the best interests of the state in our view - and putting moratoriums in place, in our view, in effect sends a very negative signal to investors."

While those resources in the ground aren't going anywhere, Davison's concern is that the opportunity for wealth to be extracted will pass, as investors will no longer look, instead going where they consider are more attractive investment environments.

"Victoria has high capital intensity projects and a country like Australia, with 24 million people, we won't be able to invest in all the industries we need to in the private sector, so we do need that global input into mining, manufacturing, agriculture, all those things," she said.

Victoria also has significant coal resources that are not necessarily an exploration challenge as they are a known resource. Further definition is required but Davison believes the big bang for the buck with a world-class coal resource can potentially be a game-changer for Victoria.

"Transforming the coal on land before export or domestic deployment will require the processing and transformation industries to be co-located, so it actually provides that hub for secondary and tertiary industries," she said.

With this in mind, in June federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and Victorian Energy and Resources Minister Russell Northe announced the latest in a series of grants to develop Victoria's coal resources: $25 million to Shanghai Electric Australia Power & Energy Development to develop a $119 million demonstration plant at the AGL-owned Loy Yang A power station in the Latrobe Valley.

The first was $30 million for Coal Energy Australia to develop a $143 million demonstration plant producing fertiliser, oil and high value coal used in steelmaking.

The second was $20 million for Ignite Energy Resources to develop an $84.3 million pre-commercial plant producing upgraded coal products for local or export markets and synthetic oil, which can be refined into fuel sources such as diesel and petrol.

With other states surging ahead in red tape reductions and exploration incentives, there is always more work to be done, though.

"There have been some really good decisions, it's just we've got to work very hard to ensure we realise the benefits of those decisions," Davison said.