Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Canavan for his question. He is, of course, a consistent advocate for Australia's resources industry, as the entire chamber knows. Lynas is an Australian-listed company and a great Aussie success and export success story. It is a key component of the global rare-earth supply chain and, I understand, supplies around 13 per cent of global rare-earth element production. Lynas owns and operates a rare-earth mine in Mount Weld, WA, and ore from Mount Weld is shipped and processed at Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Malaysia.

On 27 July 2020, Lynas announced that the US Department of Defense and Lynas had signed a contract for phase 1 work to deliver a US based heavy rare-earth processing facility. But this, I'm pleased to say, is not Lynas's only facility development. Lynas is also investing around $500 million to build a processing plant in Kalgoorlie that will use Mount Weld ore. Lynas is committed to using a residential workforce instead of FIFO workers, creating about 500 jobs in the construction phase and about 100 permanent roles. Lynas has a proven record in the processing of rare-earth elements, and this is an important milestone in delivering more diversified global supply of heavy rare earths.

Critical minerals featured again in the recent AUSMIN held by my colleagues in Washington. This highlighted the importance of work Australia and the US are progressing to diversify critical-mineral supply chains. The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted potential issues associated with concentrated supply chains, but we know that Australia is well placed to lead the diversification of critical-mineral supply chains across the globe, as we're the leading producer of some of the most sought after critical minerals, including rare earths, lithium, zirconium and titanium. These are critical minerals found in our phones, laptops and advanced technological products, and, of course, across defence industries as well. That's why we're so committed to working with our partners to help diversify that supply. (Time expired)