Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question and I recognise his strong support of the mining industry, particularly in his great state of Western Australia. We have a fantastic resources industry in this nation, a lot of it in Western Australia, and we have huge opportunities in the future in critical minerals and rare earths, as Senator O'Sullivan outlined. What are critical minerals? They are the minerals that are essential to the development of the modern economy. They are in many of the things that we feel and touch almost every day and that are changing our lives almost every day. Every smartphone has an enormous number of critical minerals, a lot of defence technologies have them, and renewable energy, too, has lots of rare earths and critical minerals. So, if you do not support the mining industry, you are not supporting a modern economy. If you do not support the mining industry, you do not support renewable energy.

What are we doing, in light of this massive opportunity for our nation? Earlier this year the Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister Birmingham, and I released the government's strategy to develop our critical-minerals industry. It is focused around three areas. We are building the infrastructure we need to connect up to some of these new mining opportunities, which are often away from other economic developments or other economic activity. We are building roads, like Karratha-Tom Price Road, to open up opportunities in Senator O'Sullivan's part of the world, as well as lots of other investment. We are investing in innovation. We have put forward $25 million to establish a future batteries cooperative research centre, which will particularly look at the minerals in the battery sector—lithium, nickel and cobalt—and will support not just the development of the mining opportunities in those but also the downstream value-adding opportunities for Australia. We are also seeking to attract investment in this sector. We know that that is how to build our resources sector, to remain open to investment and attract those dollars so that we can get jobs going in our country.