Interview with Stewart Brash, ABC Alice Springs Breakfast

STEWART BRASH, HOST: Madeleine King is Federal Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia. I asked her earlier just how important this project was. 

MADELEINE KING, MINISTER FOR RESOURCES AND NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: Well, the Arafura Rare Earths mine out at Nolans is of global significance and it sounds – you know, it is just starting in terms of its construction, so it feels like a long way off, but the people, the Arafura pioneers, as they say, have been working on this for 20 years. I’ve been working on the funding arrangements from the day we came into government in 2022, and the ministers before me were also looking at this project. So, it’s been a lot of work by a lot of people to be able to establish this mine. And the reason it’s significant is because at the moment all these products, the oxides that are from rare earths, are dominating the supply chain by one country only, and that’s a vulnerability for everyone. And what’s important for us as Australia is to be able to compete, use our natural advantage, which is our geology and, as well as our geology, our centuries of experience and expertise in mining. And that’s what Arafura has brought to bear here, just 130 k’s north of Alice Springs. What the Nolans rare earth ore‑to‑oxide facility, so it’s a very big project. Along the value chain of this product, it will get up to about 5 percent of that global market.

BRASH: It’s a massive investment and in many ways – and, you know, the Federal Government, the Commonwealth, has invested serious money in this. It’s obviously too big to fail, isn’t it? But, obviously, a lot of money is coming into it and it took a long time to get financial sign‑off, but are you confident of the investment in this even regardless of the critical minerals side of it, but is it a good investment in terms of getting something going and getting it profitable?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: I can assure you and your listeners that if I wasn’t confident of its success, it wouldn’t be getting this level of funding. But it’s important to note that facilities like the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility is there to sort of start the ball rolling on some of these difficult-to-fund projects. Australia is not alone in this. We have government credit agencies from Canada, from Germany, from the Republic of Korea and from the United States. In fact, this project was spoken about at the White House when I was there this time last year, which is a remarkable thing to think a project in literally the heart of our nation, you know, is talked about at what is the heart of global power, in the White House.  So, everyone is very interested in this. There is a lot of goodwill behind its success and the hardworking people at Arafura have done a tremendous job and being out there yesterday and seeing clearly their deep and long-term engagement with the traditional owners of that land and their act of participation in the project, is also one of the finest things I’ve ever seen in the resources sector.

BRASH: We are very happy – I mean, a lot of people have been worried about the economic future of the town of this region, looking for Nolans as part of the solution. Are you impressed by Arafura’s commitment to the town of Alice Springs? I mean, they can’t be – by the sound of it, we can’t force them to base their workforce, but they seem quite open to ensuring that as much of the workforce is based here and as much of the contracting comes out of here. Are you confident this will have a massive impact, a positive impact on the town?

KING: I am very confident it will have a positive impact on the town. When our government credit agencies like the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and Export Finance Australia go through their due diligence, they do analysis on how it will help local communities, how it will help local traditional owners as well. So, that’s factored into our investment. It is a game changer, just like the Beetaloo gas extraction too is a really important part of development for the Northern Territory. It’s not going to happen overnight and I think everyone who sees Arafura around and have been to the roundtables that the NT Government have helped organise and that Arafura are doing know there’s a lot of planning to go into this, but they are working really hard to make sure that we do have that good local content because we all want to see Alice Springs thrive.

BRASH: Just speaking to the (Northern Territory) Treasurer, Bill Yan, who was there. He didn’t get a silver shovel from what I can see, but I was speaking to Bill Yan and he was saying in regards to – and we were talking about, say, Beetaloo gas, and we now know – you and I had a conversation about this recently – that the NT Government, the NT will be subject to the gas reservation system. He was making the point that they shouldn’t be subject to the gas reservation. Is there any capacity for the Northern Territory to be exempt from that or is it going to be one size fits all?

KING: The country has a constitution, which means when we have federal laws, we have to treat states equally – and territories. So, everyone is subject to the gas reservation in one way or another. But the really important thing for the Territory and Territorians to us is that I agree entirely with the Northern Territory government that this Beetaloo gas as it comes off – the first gas is – the priority is to make sure that the Territory gets what it needs and more and cheaply and affordably. That changes some of the economics around projects in the NT …

BRASH: But is one-size-fits-all good for the Territory, though, in terms of the gas reservation?

KING: Well, the reservation itself does have means of adapting to constraints around supply and pipelines is one of those constraints. So, that’s all factored into when we make export licence decisions. And we’ve spoken with the industry extensively. I think those operators here in the NT, like Tamboran, and increasingly Inpex, into the Beetaloo, understand the need to make sure NT is well supplied and they also understand the need to have the rest of the country well supplied, because if we do make sure Australians have access to more affordable gas and Australian industry does, then there’s less contention around the export of that product, and I think that’s important.

BRASH: Again, this is something the NTG have mentioned. They’re looking for Commonwealth support or Commonwealth underwriting for gas pipelines. You said, “Well, if they’re going to be profitable, the private sector can build them.” Why does the Northern Territory feel the need, they want the support of the government to underwrite those pipelines, because you’re right, I mean, they’ve got to get the gas somewhere, they’re looking for support, but you’ve made it pretty clear in the past that that is not going to be forthcoming?

KING: Well, the thing is we don’t need to, in my view, and at the moment, ever since we announced the policy and made part of it that the industry must sell or must provide gas as opposed to offer, that’s changed a lot of the economics into private investment into pipelines and I think the first position should always be, well, if private investment can meet this need, we should allow that to happen and encourage it to happen.

BRASH: Do you think that’s the case with getting gas out of Beetaloo to the east?

KING: I absolutely do think so. First priority is getting it to the rest of the north, the Territory itself. There is a pipeline already to the east and it needs expanding. We speak with the pipeline providers quite frequently and they’re pretty enthusiastic about the potential for their investments. So, we’re going to see how that runs. We know there’s a need to build out that infrastructure. We totally accept that.

BRASH: You’re hearing from Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King, also Minister for Northern Australia. I do need to finish off, but I do want to finish off on the visa issue. Your government suggested it’s going to limit what we call backpacker visas. There will be a ballot. There will be a reduction in, say, the numbers of third-year backpackers or those doing third year down to 5,000 per annum. You will know as Minister for Northern Australia that hospitality, farming and agriculture as well as the tourism industry run on backpackers. There was a letter sent to the Federal Government by Hospo NT, by the farmers, by the tourism body saying we need a carve-out for the Northern Territory. Will the Northern Territory get a carve-out in terms of the backpacker visas? 

KING: So, the working holiday maker visas, and we call them the backpacker visas, they are at quite high levels at the moment. So, we are seeing quite a lot of backpacker visas. People will know this just from when they go and grab a coffee and so forth.

BRASH: Well, this town runs on them. In fact, the tourism industry runs on them.

KING: Indeed, and in Darwin too, I dare say in Cairns, and other places right across the north.

BRASH: Correct. So, why are we targeting that when they’re not the problem because they’re in remote areas?

KING: Well, the working holiday maker visas do add significant numbers to the net overseas migration.

BRASH: But are they a problem on infrastructure, all the things which people are concerned about in terms of urban areas, housing and the like, because they’re out serving beer at Mount Dare?

KING: But they still need houses. Maybe some of them and I understand and I’ve seen them live in campervans and so forth, but by and large we have an unbalanced situation where housing kind of needs to catch up with population, so at the moment we’ve set a target for net and overseas migration of around 225,000 and that’s a sensible reasonable figure, and that takes into account – 

BRASH: I know time is limited. I want to say: How will we ensure that Northern Australia, the Territory, have enough workers to do the jobs, because, otherwise, there’s no point having a tourism industry? It will be like COVID. There will be beds closed in the hotels here because they don’t have the staff to do it. How are we going to avoid that?

KING: We will keep and our government and Minister Tony Burke and his team will keep speaking with the Northern Territory Government and making sure that how we have those numbers and how they work and how they work within housing in the Territory and its infrastructure being able to keep up with those numbers to make that it’s balanced on the community that live here all the time, totally accepting you do need those for those industries; you need them in remote cattle stations. There’s so many industries. I totally understand the demand. The Nolans rare earths project is going to need a lot of it – maybe not exactly backpackers but other skilled migrants.

BRASH: So, will there be a carve-out?

MINISTER MADELEINE KING: I’m not going to speak to a particular carve-out. It will be a considered take into account the needs of each place, and I think that’s important. We can’t just have open slather. I think everyone accepts that, but equally – 

BRASH: Do you accept that remote Australia in this case is very different? We don’t have the problems which you might have in the city. Do you accept that remote Australia has special needs on this one?

KING: It has special needs in terms of getting people to go there, but it does have a housing – that is common, right? But I would say –

BRASH: No‑one has said that to me, though. No‑one has complained to me about housing for backpackers. What people have complained about is not having staff.

KING: I can understand that. But I would also look at the alternative at the moment is two parties in a race to the bottom, suggesting figures of 170,000 and 130,000. So, we’re not wanting, and we never would, and what they are trying to do is a race to the bottom that seeks to crash the economy to get a political outcome. Now, that’s absurd. We do have to do this sensibly, and it’s a whole country. I do accept there are different needs in the north. Of course, there is. It’s why we have a portfolio that addresses Northern Australia, but in the south, there are a lot of concerns about numbers and we have to try and balance all that up, and that’s what we’re trying to do. But I definitely know for a fact, because I speak with him frequently, that the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke and his whole team and Julian Hill, the Assistant Minister for Immigration, is looking at how we work with each jurisdiction to make it work as best we can for them for the needs of their respective industries, because we know it’s important.

BRASH: That’s Madeleine King, the Federal Resources Minister, Minister for Northern Australia.