Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Prime Minister. The member for Kennedy referred to a resources reservation policy, and I'm happy to discuss that briefly. There are now many calls across many parts of the community for reservations of gas, in particular. This is something brought on by industrial users and manufacturers. Indeed, even those opposite have announced a reservation policy of their own—a great change from when they failed to support the Western Australian reservation policy, which has proved enormously successful for the price of gas and access to gas in Western Australia.

At the moment, the government has reviewed the gas market regulations. There is a consultation paper out, and there have been many submissions to it. One of the concepts we put forward as a government was around a framework to ensure that domestic supply is secured for the east coast. Another part of our resources reservation policy goes to the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, which is about building up a national asset to make sure that we not only have a supply of critical minerals but also are a reliable supplier of critical minerals and rare earths to our partners right around the world. It will allow us to work with our partners, together, against disruptions and from a position of real strength.

I look forward to the member for Kennedy's support for that reserve. I note that those opposite were very quick to dismiss the reserve and, indeed, oppose it, which is quite unusual, given they support a gas reserve but not a critical minerals reserve. That might go to some of the confusion opposite between gas and critical minerals—as we know, they have named gas as a critical mineral in the past. I hope they won't do that again. I thank the member for Kennedy for his question.

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