Anthony Albanese’s announcement of another $2 billion worth of cheap government loans and guarantees for critical minerals is designed to demonstrate the extent of Labor’s ambitions in clean energy and green manufacturing.
But while an additional $2 billion will no doubt be helpful to various potential projects, Australia’s progress on critical minerals is far from the comprehensive, coordinated strategy happily suggested in the US. Yet even getting approvals for a new mine can take many years – let alone final investment decisions on more complicated processing facilities.making big bets on competing for projects and further processing, the critical minerals sector is still a long way from development at scale or from any manufacturing.minerals with the Albanese government still refining additions to its existing list of 26.
In May, the US and Australia signed a “climate, critical minerals and clean energy transformation compact” touted by President Joe Biden as theThe prime minister noted at the time the big risk of the IRA had been that global capital would all flow to the US. The compact, he said, would help address this, including the establishment of a joint US Australian taskforce with a year-end deadline to produce a plan for greater cooperation.
Tesla chair Robyn Denholm warned last month the longer Australia waited, the more likely it was other countries would leapfrog it into capturing the most valuable part of the battery supply chain even if they didn’t have the same underlying materials.