Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I really look forward to speaking on critical minerals because, as the former Minister for Resources and Water mentioned earlier, there are some key differences when it comes to critical minerals between the government that we have in place now and the former government. I think one of the big mistakes that the former government made was getting confused about the meaning of a couple of words: 'critical', 'minerals' and 'ministry'. Unfortunately, the former government didn't see fit to put the resources ministry on the front bench. The Albanese government has remedied that terrible error by putting on the front bench an exemplar Minister for Resources, Madeleine King. She, as part of that front bench, has said we need a review of our critical-minerals strategy.

This is where the former government are also a little confused. They want to confuse the words 'appropriate' and 'announcement'. Whilst they certainly made a lot of terrific announcements about critical minerals and their strategy for critical minerals, what they failed to do was appropriate enough money for it. There's a big difference between saying, 'We're going to spend $1.5 million on a strategy,' and appropriating it, which is putting the money in the budget. Every Australian knows that you can talk about buying a new car, buying a fabulous house or trying to buy something for your kids for Christmas, but if you haven't got the money or you can't get access to it then you end up usually not being able to buy it, and you're certainly spending outside your limits. That's what the former government did.

Our government has a new strategy for critical minerals. It's so important because Australia is the fifth-largest globally in supply of critical minerals. We are not only going to have a reliable, properly budgeted critical minerals strategy but we're going to consult with the industry, not cherry-pick like the former government did. We're going to consult with industry. We're going to consult with communities and with traditional owners. We need to get it right.

I heard the former minister mention antimony, a rare and critical mineral. We're looking at how that can contribute to the Australian economy. We know that we need to do more in the processing of important critical minerals. Aluminium is another one that I personally would like to see on the critical minerals list, not only because I have one of the biggest smelters in the country in my electorate but because I understand how critical aluminium will be in driving the Australian renewables sector. I'm very pleased that the member for Hunter joins me in the chamber tonight because I know that he understands the value of critical minerals to Australia and how we drive our economy forward.

The mining services industry is also so important when it comes to, quite frankly, getting those minerals out of the ground. In the Hunter we have some of the best mining in the world and we will be able to help develop that sector because we will be able to give great information, technology and instruction about mining, particularly when it comes to safety, economy, efficiency and technology. We will help extract those critical and rare minerals out of the ground across Australia, where we can help drive automation, technology and all of the things that we need in a modern world, which we need these rare and critical minerals for.

That's why we're reviewing this strategy. We're looking at it because we need to take not only a whole-of-government but a whole-of-nation approach to make sure that, firstly, we have enough supply of critical minerals and, secondly, we can extract them out of the ground. Thirdly, what do we do with them? How do we actually make things with those critical minerals, not just dig them up, send them away to have them processed overseas and then re-import them, which is what we do now with so many of our critical minerals?

This is where it is very important to have that strategy and consultation, not, as the federal government did before we were elected, to spray money around and make lots of announcements. Quite frankly, it wasn't a critical strategy. It was a strategy that we are very critical of, and we're going to do a much better job of this whole sector, which is so vitally important to our economy moving forward.

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