I wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on, the Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects to elders past and present.

I extend that respect to those First Nations peoples here today and those First Nations communities on whose country we extract resources and build our prosperity for the whole community. 

Thank you to the Minerals Council of Australia for the opportunity to speak at this morning’s breakfast. 

This is my third address to the Minerals week breakfast as Federal Resources Minister. 

When I first spoke to this room two years ago as Minister it was one of my first major speeches after being appointed to this role.  

Back then I spoke about how proud I was to be Minister, and how excited I was about the strong state of our resources sector. 

I want to thank those in this room for your support since I was appointed. 

We don’t always agree on some points of policy, but we all agree on the importance of the sector and we work in its best interests every single day. 

I thank you for your patience in bringing me up to speed on some aspects of the industry I needed to learn more about and I’m grateful for the thoughtful and productive working relationship you have with me and my department. 

Our country relies so much on its resources industry. 

Not just for its prosperity, but so much of our national identity is now tied to mining and resources. 

So to serve as resources minister is a great honour. And it’s a particular honour to serve in this role as a Western Australian. 

I am keenly aware that I am the first woman in this job in an industry which traditionally has had low levels of female representation, across all levels. 

However I am fortunate to be Resources Minister at a time when there are so many female leaders in the resources sector. 

Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Council of Australia Tania Constable, Chief Executive at the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia Rebecca Tomkinson, Hancock Prospecting Chair Gina Rinehart, CEO and Managing Director of Lynas, Amanda Lacaze, BHP’s President of Australian operations, Geraldine Slattery, Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill and CEO of Australian Energy Producers Samantha McCulloch to name a few. 

I can see Geraldine and Amanda are here today and it was great to catch up with you last night at the wonderful women in resources national award ceremony. 

And can I congratulate you Tania on the launch of your Minerals-plus strategy this week. As the stamp on the front says it is made in Australia. 

I agree with you that we all need to work harder to unlock mining investment – and that is exactly what this Government is doing. 

The resources sector plays a crucial role in the economy, it has done so in the past, underwriting our long running national prosperity and  seeing the nation through troubled times like the global financial crisis and COVID 19. 

And it will play a crucial role well into the future. 

How we have acted 

No government in recent memory has put the resources industry at the centre of its policy making in the way that the Albanese Government has. 

In those two years since I first addressed this forum, the Albanese Government has had a special focus on our critical minerals and rare earths industries.

I see it as a national mission to support this sector. 

To develop a new sector, industry needs support – like the iron ore and steel industries before it. 

But critical minerals and rare earth mining and processing needs government to back it in with more than just words.

In June last year I released the Critical Minerals Strategy, which provided the blueprint for our approach for supporting the industry. 

We then updated the critical minerals list and created a new Strategic Materials List of commodities – providing more projects with the potential to access government funding. 

We doubled the Critical Minerals Facility to $4 billion and had the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility direct $500 million of its $7 billion in available funding towards critical minerals projects in the North. 

We have announced more than $1.5 billion in support for specific, strategically important projects, including for Arafura Resources Rare Earths Nolans Project near Alice Springs, Alpha HPA’s high purity alumina project in Gladstone and Renascor Resources’ Siviour Graphite project in South Australia. 

But the largest measure of our support for the critical minerals industry was delivered with our Federal Budget. 

The Government put the critical minerals and rare earths industry at the heart of its policy making through the Future Made in Australia plan. 

Under that plan, the Government committed to $17.6 billion Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive.

As you know, this measure is being opposed by the Coalition. 

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor was out attacking the policy as “welfare for billionaires” within just a few hours of the Budget being released, without checking in with businesses that all had input into designing the Incentives. 

The Shadow Treasurer probably should also have taken a moment to check with his Western Australian colleagues. 

Alongside Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, The Western Australian Liberals and Nationals all support our Production Tax Incentives. 

(And I note reading The West Australian this week some federal WA Liberals are also wishing Mr Dutton would change his mind on this).

It remains baffling to me why the Coalition would choose to dismiss industry driven policy for the sake of getting up a soundbite about “welfare for billionaires”. 

This is no way to run resources policy. Even from Opposition. 

It demonstrates a lack of understanding and leadership within the Liberal and National Parties and their unwillingness to engage sincerely across the industry. 

It also again shows how the Coalition has always taken this industry for granted. It is clear for all to see that the Resources portfolio in the Coalition is now no more than a plaything for the Nationals carved out as part of a deal with the Liberals. 

Another measure we announced as part of Budget that flew under the radar somewhat, but was just as important, was our generational funding for geoscience. 

This work is critical for the success of the resources sector. 

Having worked at the development of ensuring a long-term future for Geoscience Australia, I was really very proud to announce that the Albanese Government would commit $3.4 billion for the Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity program.

This investment will enable Geoscience Australia to map the entire continent to find deposits of minerals and resources needed to provide wealth, create jobs and feed industry for decades to come. 

This data will be provided to companies for free to help them find those next big discoveries to provide jobs and wealth for future generations of Australians. 

I want to thank the Treasurer Jim Chalmers for his support of this game changing initiative. 

As a Queenslander he gets the resources sector and how important it is to help out junior explorers that use this precompetitive data to let them know where they should go to take a closer look under the surface of the earth. 

Exploration is hard work – it’s a hard slog drilling and surveying in harsh conditions and Government investment is guiding where explorers should go and is worth every cent. 

This is an investment in science, which will literally discover what we are made of. 

But as I say, we need to act now. 

The critical minerals sector is facing headwinds. 

While all commodities experience natural boom and bust cycles, critical minerals and rare earths markets face additional structural challenges. 

This is no longer academic. 

The warnings given for years about the associated risks with thin markets and concentrated supply chains are now being realised. 

We are seeing the very real consequences here in Australia.

Facilities that have been world leading in processing battery grade ingredients such as lithium hydroxide and nickel sulphide have gone into closure because massive oversupply is distorting markets which are opaque and subject to manipulation. 

International  

While the Albanese Government is taking action here in Australia to support our critical minerals industry, we are also working with the United States and partners overseas to strengthen supply chains and to ensure specific strategic projects get the support they need. 

International partnerships with partners who value our high labour standards and high environmental, social and governance standards are crucial.

Speaking to long term investors in the Australian resources sector will be essential to the success of this emerging industry. 

Over the past two years I have worked to strengthen strategic partnerships with the US, UK, France, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Japan, India, and the European Union. 

I recently spoke at the 45^th meeting of the Australia-Korea Business Council and visited the Republic of Korea and Japan earlier in the year to discuss these matters with Government and industry. 

In May, Australia and the EU signed an MoU on Sustainable Critical and Strategic Minerals. 

In March 2024, I travelled to the US for the second time as Resources Minister and met with my American counterparts as part of the Critical Minerals Taskforce. 

I was able to discuss at the highest levels what further actions the Australian and US governments can do together to promote stronger supply chain links in critical minerals. 

This paved the way for enhanced engagement from their Export Import Bank (EXIM) to lean into financing Australian critical minerals projects, and for the US Department of Defense to finance Australian projects under the Defence Production Act. 

We need to do more to ensure our partners lean into efforts to strengthen and support our critical minerals and rare earths sectors, but Australia’s credibility and ability to make such requests depends on us taking up responsibility to lead on critical minerals and rare earth elements globally.

Now is not the time to sit back and do nothing. 

Australia has to play a leadership role. Our geology provides the platform to lead on critical minerals and rare earth elements to ensure regional prosperity and security. 

But we have to play our part. 

The Labor Government through our $17 billion production tax credits is making a significant downpayment on taking up that role. 

This government will step up while the Opposition steps back. 

Forging practical partnerships with nations like the US, Japan and Korea to safeguard and grow our critical minerals industry is key to our security and the stability of our region.

Rare earths are particularly important for military capabilities and associated supply chains.  

And so securing these supply chains is imperative not only for our future economic diversity and sovereign capacity and but also for our security and that of the region. 

Developing our critical minerals sector is not a “nice to have” to augment iron ore, coal and gold mining.

It’s a strategic imperative. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak with you this morning.

Australia’s resources industry faces a bright future. 

But we need to do the work to achieve that prosperity. 

Over the past two years, this Government has been doing that work. 

Our resources sector is the bedrock on which we are building a better Future Made in Australia. 

Thank you.