Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister for Resources. How will the new national Critical minerals strategy 2023-2030 drive the development of Australia's critical minerals sector and help Australia reach net zero? What approaches has the government rejected?

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

DELEINE KING (—) (): I thank the member for Swan for her question. As a former resources worker, she knows very well the great value of the resources sector and the critical minerals resources sector to the economy of Australia. Today I released Australia's new national critical minerals strategy, which establishes a framework to grow Australia's critical minerals sector. As you may know, the minerals required to develop a standard solar panel include but are not limited to gallium, indium, silicon—all of which are presently on our critical minerals list—and also several important minerals like aluminium and zinc. Silicon is used to generate electricity in solar panels, while aluminium is the ideal panel for the frame that controls a solar panel, because it is lightweight, conducts heat, is durable and can be easily recycled. These minerals are the ones the world needs to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and the world absolutely knows this, and it is absolutely astonishing the depths to which the Liberals and Nationals were willing to put their heads in the sand when they were in government and ignore the obvious connection between critical minerals and reaching net zero. That is the approach that this government has rejected.

Another approach we rejected was the approach of issuing two versions of the critical minerals strategy and failing to consult absolutely anyone at all. This approach is the rock bottom of policy development in this nation, and those opposite were responsible for it. The new national critical minerals strategy, released today by the Albanese Labor government, changes that. Australia has the geology and, thanks to this government, we now have the policy.

As I've said before, the road to net zero runs through Australia's resources sector. Thanks to this government, our strategy highlights the role that our critical minerals will play in the world's net zero ambitions. This strategy will help to create diverse, resilient and sustainable supply chains. It will build our sovereign capability in critical minerals processing and it will extract more value from our resources, resulting in more jobs and economic activity for our regions. It will help deliver net zero by 2050.

Northern Australia will play a very important role in the development of this industry, and that is why we have earmarked half a billion dollars of NAIF's additional $2 billion appropriation to projects that ally with this critical minerals strategy. This government has also earmarked $1 billion for the Value Adding in Resources Fund, part of the broader $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which of course those opposite did oppose.

This government, through Prime Minister Albanese, established the Australia-United States Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact, a compact which would be impossible for those opposite ever to have introduced, because they denied the important link between critical minerals and reaching net zero emissions in this country. (Time expired)