''The government late last year updated the critical minerals...

''The government late last year updated the critical minerals list, which contains 26 minerals including lithium, manganese, cobalt and rare earth metals, and began a new list of “strategically” critical minerals that King in December described as “essential for the energy transition”.King is now considering two potential models of support. One is to build new greenfield infrastructure hubs, and the second would repurpose and reinvest in existing industrial parks to suit critical mineralsAsked where such hubs would most likely be placed,
King says they will inevitably be near deposits.“I don’t want to pre-empt [decisions about hub locations], but there’s going to be a sort of natural selection, for want of a better term.“You don’t necessarily need to throw a whole bunch of government funding at a shiny new industrial park, or something like that. But there are constraints within existing infrastructure that can be addressed”.Low-hanging fruit, as she describes them, may be available in the form of expanding existing roads and other common-use infrastructure such as railways or ensuring supply of energy and gas that will be critical to critical minerals processing.Expanding common-use infrastructure is what “government does best”.“It shouldn’t be left to private interests to build what become shared roads, water resources and energy access,” she says.“And there’s no way I’m getting this through a budgetary process without co-investment from states. “When I meet with resources ministers they’re always up for this because they know the more of the resources they get out of the ground the greater the benefit from state-based royalties … and more jobs.”“We’ve got some good ideas,” she says, adding that she hopes details can be nailed down by “later in the year”.
List revisionsKing’s other priorities are to ensure that around half a billion dollars in funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund that Labor has earmarked for critical minerals projects gets allocated, as well as “bedding down” international partnerships.“The Critical Minerals Compact with the US is of particular importance,” which includes reclassifying Australian suppliers as “domestic” for American defence procurement purposes.King says she is also open to ongoing revisions of the critical minerals list. “It’s a working document that at a minimum gets reviewed very three years. But if there’s a change of circumstances, I would do it tomorrow.”Amid ongoing calls for greater government support for the critical minerals sector, King says she is determined to spend public money cautiously and get results.
Much of the critical minerals sector has been enveloped by an ongoing cycle of zealous optimism followed by disappointment. Critics lament that too much attention goes to lithium projects at the expense of other minerals.“I appreciate a lot of people can feel this,” admits King.“It does feel like there’s a lot of talk ally committed to getting some of those deliverables. " AFR MADELIENE KING MP. 8/2 (extract)