There are some people on here advocating that Australia should become the world's superpower steel producer, by setting up SEZs if necessary to circumvent current laws and standards relating to health, safely, environment, taxation, wages, foreign workers etc. And produce steel in Australia for export to the world rather than simply shipping iron ore and coal in its raw form.
I say bollocks to that idea. If Andrew Forrest can achieve his ambition of producing 'green' hydrogen, ammonia and steel I say all power to him and I hope he succeeds. It could be a game changer and become a large industry if it gets up.
But I say what Australia needs to focus and heavily invest in are not steel mills but education and research. Big picture.
The big money and jobs of the future are going to come from;
Biotech
Medical research
AI
Robotics
Quantum computing
Conventional computer science and research
Nuclear research, physics
Renewable energy research
Battery technology
Energy storage research
Chemistry - finding new compounds, catalysts and material
Nano tunes
Communications, IT, ICT
Aviation and space technology
Plus utilising our existing abundance of minerals, energy resources, food and fibre production.
All the above industries and areas of research can employ huge amounts of people and generate massive amounts of income, recurring long term benefits to the entire nation, and it's sustainable.
Wtf are you doing Australia?
There's not another nation on Earth that has been blessed with as much natural resources and potential as Australia has.
If we don't excel in the areas I've listed above, we'll always be a nation of price takers and will never reach our full potential.
Education from K-12 and up to university level for EVERYONE who wants to complete a degree should be completely free. Regardless of what course they choose to pursue. Post graduate study should be very cheap. The pay back is multiples of what it costs.
Every year we don't do what I recommend, is another year we risk falling further behind.
