NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Minister, good morning, and thank you very much for your time.

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Good morning, Nadia. Good to be here.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Did you know this was coming?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, everyone I think knew from about five months ago when BHP first started or first announced that they were looking into the whole of the Nickel West operations and reviewing it because of the oversupply in the international market that this was one of the potential outcomes. And accordingly, I’ve been speaking to BHP ever since that time about this – well, what ended up being the outcome but about what the alternatives were. And it’s a difficult day obviously for the workers and their families that will be affected by this. I note BHP’s comments around redeploying frontline workers and helping every other part of the workforce as well to find work within the BHP ecosystem.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: You say you were in discussions with BHP. Were there any other alternatives? What were they?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, it’s an extraordinary market and how it’s changed is many factors beyond Government’s control and beyond BHP’s control as well. There’s international factors where an extraordinary amount of investment has gone into creating an industry from virtually nothing in the space of four or five years in Indonesia. So these are things that we can’t – well, we just can’t, you know, stop other nations creating industries and making that for themselves. But we spoke to BHP extensively about different options, but the challenges for what is a over 50 years old or just going on 50-years-old facility and supply chain were too great in the current market situation for government to be able to intervene to the extent that BHP needed.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: When BHP did first warn of this five months ago you did put nickel on the critical minerals list, which did mean BHP could then access finance under your $4 billion critical minerals facility. Did BHP access any of that money?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, no, they didn’t because – and they were very supportive actually, BHP, and participated in a lot of discussions around nickel being on the critical minerals list but also the development of the production tax credit. But the losses across this supply chain and the fact that it’s, you know, a 50-year-old facility meant that that was not going to assist. BHP don’t really have a capital problem; they have a cash flow issue here, and a very significant one. And they have tried to work through it as best they can. And I really am grateful that it’s a temporary suspension and not a more, I suppose, dead-end kind of closure, which would be even a worse situation, that they’ve considered that and gone into that temporary suspension rather than something much more permanent.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Well, we don’t know that, though, because all they’re saying is that they’ll review the decision in 2027. That’s no guarantee that these operations will be rebooted.

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: It’s no guarantee, but it’s much better than a complete closure. And I think they know – BHP know, and I think they’ve said in their statements both at the press conference yesterday and in their media statements that they do see an upside for nickel into the future once that three to five-year oversupply has been taken up by international OEMs. So that’s why. I mean, they’ve got an interest in not putting it into total care and maintenance but this suspension operation and keeping things warm, so to speak, until the situation internationally improves.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And what is your forecast? I mean, what are you being told about how that may pan out in the next few years?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, similar to BHP, we expect that the uptake of EVs will improve. We know that in Indonesia they’ve put a restraint on the further development of their nickel industry because they are also now suffering under the glut created by their new industry. So a number of things are happening in that regard. And also the work I’ve been doing with our Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd around – and the European Union for that matter around having our ESG standards in Australia taken into account in nickel pricing. That’s a difficult nut to crack but it’s important that –

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So how difficult – do you mean have different prices for different grades of nickel?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Exactly, that’s right.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Okay.

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Different grades of nickel and different production standards. So when everyone buys – or anyone who is able to buy or wants to buy an EV vehicle, they would or many people want to know that it’s been produced responsibly and all the ingredients within the large batteries have high environmental social governance standards. And that’s what Nickel West brings to that international nickel supply chain – some of the highest standards in the world. And when that price – when we increase – prices reflect in the price to those manufacturers, that will be a good time for Nickel West to restart. But also, we’ve invested in other technologies. Just last week the Government supported Queensland Pacific Metals in their new nickel production facility on the east coast of Australia, which is a different facility because on a different ore, because we know the importance of keeping battery-grade nickel going from this country for other countries.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And does this impact on that, though? Because you talk obviously about that immediate impact of 3,000 people who obviously can take a redundancy or go into other work within BHP, but is there a wider impact here for the wider nickel industry, and particularly those flow-on effects when we’re talking about wanting to do more downstream processing for batteries and renewables?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, yeah, there’s absolutely a flow-on effect. And these effects started about six or seven months ago when other operations were curtailed because of the extraordinary drop in pricing that we’ve seen around the world. So it’s not just BHP, it’s just BHP has the end refining process. So there’s certainly clearly a knock-on effect here. There’ll be a knock-on effect to supplies in other countries, particularly Japan. But I know BHP has been talking with its partners around this and they will be securing other sources with them. And they’ve also got a long – a stockpile, so to speak, of the briquettes that go into their production facility. And that is a knock-on effect. It’s really important to think about, and I know BHP have been very active in thinking about it. We’ve been talking about it with them as well. So that is work to be done and it will be important work.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: I mean, can Australia still play a key role in those processing of nickel and other critical minerals that are needed for, as I said, batteries and renewables?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, I think the story with nickel goes to show how important the new initiatives of the Government are in respect of all the critical minerals. So nickel was, you know, originally mined and produced in this country to add into stainless steel, to strengthen it and make it shiny and all these things. It’s a very different process to what is needed for battery-grade nickel. And the steps that were put in place around the world that has led to the decision of BHP yesterday around Nickel West, they started about five or six years ago. So it’s not something that has happened overnight, but it has happened really quickly. There’s no doubt about that. It’s caught the former government on the hop. They clearly didn’t do anything about it. It’s caught BHP a bit as well. They’ve invested a lot of money into the Nickel West refinery here in Kwinana.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: And could you also argue that any offer of assistance from your government came too late?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, I think the steps internationally came too late. And the steps we provided were not the steps that BHP ultimately could make use of in any event. So the production tax credit will be really important for the other critical minerals that are just getting started and new modern technology and new processing facilities as opposed to trying to retrofit a 50-year-old set of facilities across Kambalda, Kalgoorlie and Kwinana into that modern technology processing. So that’s among the many stumbling blocks that Nickel West faces. That’s one of them, is that it’s retrofitting a very old facility, and that costs a lot more and it’s really difficult and it’s particularly difficult when the price has changed so much in such a quick amount of time.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Finally, Madeleine King, the Federal Resources Minister, other producers who had their ore processed at Kambalda’s nickel smelter, what do they do now?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, we’ll be talking to other international partners as well about what they – of that ore they might be able to purchase. There are, as I said, QPM is doing work in Queensland around the processing of nickel. We’ll do our best. And BHP will as well. We know they’re very much engaged in this whole supply chain to see that ore does not go to waste. And that would be the worst thing.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: So overseas then, I’d imagine? They had have to get it processed overseas, wouldn’t it?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, at the moment, yeah, that’s right, because this is a closure in that process. But we’ll keep working – and, you know, obviously BHP are a big part of the whole resources ecosystem in this country – the mining of coal and also iron ore, of course, in the Pilbara. So we’ll be very much in touch with them about all their operations but about when they come to review this. And I can assure, you know, listeners that I’ll be working and so will the Government and particularly our partners in the US and Japan and other places to make sure that we can revitalise that nickel price in a sensible fashion so that the international market more accurately reflects the needs of nickel in that lithium iron supply chain.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: BHP is offering $20 million in support programs. Is that enough?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Well, BHP are also re-deploying that workforce and have made a very big commitment to that. I’m grateful for what they are willing to do to help communities. You know, it might be up to them if they choose at some point to contribute more. But I welcome the package that they’ve put together as it stands.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: I’ll leave it there. And I do appreciate your time. Thank you.

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: Thanks, Nadia.

NADIA MITSOPOULOS: Madeleine King there, Federal Resources Minister.