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Albanese: Keep critical minerals inAustralia, make our own batteries
Australia should keep more of itscritical minerals inside the country despite requests from China to invest innew mines, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared in a pledge to spurlocal industries to make batteries and other renewable technologies.
Linkingnational security to domestic industry, Albanese said he wanted to put publicmoney into projects that could expand local manufacturing and recover from theloss of the big carmakers over the past decade.
Thecomments came in a response to a question about China’s desire for approvalfrom Canberra to invest in big mining projects and gain access to lithium at atime of growing demand for the minerals needed for high-tech devices.
“Weneed to not just dig it up. I want to make sure we use the lithium and nickeland other products we have to make batteries here,” Albanese said.
“That’spart of the vision of protecting our national economy going forward. I think weshould be making solar panels here. I think we should be making so many morethings here in order to protect our national sovereignty.”
Albaneseused an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday to assure Australianshe was acting to shore up national security and that this was linked toeconomic security and the sovereignty of local manufacturing.
Heinsisted Australia would maintain sovereignty over the nuclear-poweredsubmarines to be built under the AUKUS pact with the United States and theUnited Kingdom, said he wanted to build up local defence manufacturing andurged the Senate to approve the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund as away to encourage local industry.
“Yes,it’s about our sovereign capability, it’s about our defence,” he said of AUKUSand local manufacturing. “But it is also about our industry policy, about our economy,about jobs here.”
TheCoalition has rejected the $15 billion industry fund on the grounds it could bea “slush fund” and that it would be better to cut costs for manufacturersinstead.
Albanese attacked the Coalition foropposing the industry fund, a $10 billion housing fund, a law to cap coalprices in order to ease pressure on energy bills, and the safeguard mechanismto require 215 big entities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Theprime minister did not name China when asked about the country, and mentionedit only once in his speech on national security, saying his government hadstabilised relations with it.
While theprime minister met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in November,and Foreign Minister Penny Wong made a landmark visit to Beijing in December,relations continue to be weakened by Chinese curbs on Australian exports.Albanese called these measures “sanctions” last May but did not repeat that language on Wednesday.
Chinese commercial investment in Australia slumped from $493billion in 2021 to $273 billion in 2022, according to a report in December bythe Foreign Investment Review Board. The report said this commercial investment was worth $56 billion in the first quarter of the 2023 financial year, a figure that puts it on track to fall in annual terms.
Lithium, cobalt and nickel are keyminerals needed for lithium-ion batteries at a time of growing demand forenergy storage in digital devices and electric vehicles, but global regulatorshave been wary of Chinese control of foreign commodities.
Chinese company Tianqi Lithium launched a $136million bid for Australian lithium developer Essential Metals in early January,setting up a trigger for approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board. Thecompany recommended the bid and will seek shareholder approval by April.
AnotherAustralian company, Core Lithium, began exports to China inJanuary.
The Canadian government ordered Chinese companies to sell their stakes inthree lithium and other critical mineral projects last November, after public debate about national security.
Australiantensions with China became steadily worse when the Morrison government rejectedChinese bids for pipeline company APA Group, beverage company Lion Dairy andDrinks and construction company Probuild.
UnderTreasurer Jim Chalmers, however, the government has approved China Baowu SteelGroup’s ownership of 46 per cent of the Western Range iron ore project in WesternAustralia, a move revealed by The Australian last Saturday. Rio Tinto is themajority shareholder.
