National Press Club keynote

Introduction and acknowledgement of Country

Thank you, Jane [Jane Norman, board director of the NPC] for that introduction – it’s always a pleasure to share a platform with a fellow Western Australian – and thank you to the National Press Club for this opportunity. 

I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today, the Ngunnawal people, and I extend my respect to Elders past and present. I also acknowledge and recognise the Traditional Owners of lands around the country where the resources industry operates. 

Geoscience Australia conducts its work right around the country, in cities and towns, and in the most remote locations there are. When I first became the Minister responsible for this incredible institution, Geoscience Australia taught me that Australia’s indigenous peoples were the first miners, mappers and navigators of this vast continent. 

This week, Geoscience Australia is celebrating Earth Science Week, which is a global celebration that highlights how earth sciences shape our lives from day to day and how they can shape the future. This year’s theme is ‘Critical Minerals for a Thriving Society’ and as Geoscience Australia plays an integral role in finding and understanding them, it is leaning into it. 

Students and geoscience enthusiasts around the country are taking part. Those that live here could visit GA itself, or even seek out the internationally geologically significant ‘Canberra Unconformity’ on Capital Hill and State Circle. I will leave you all to do your own research on that. 

I would also like to acknowledge:

• My parliamentary colleagues, in particular Senator the Hon Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Science; and the Member for Paterson Meryl Swanson. 
• Newly appointed Secretary of DISR, Simon Draper
• Members of the diplomatic corps and the public service 
• Representatives of the resources sector, in particular, the Minerals Council of Australia, and the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC).
• Press Gallery members

This place is not one that regularly hosts leaders of the mining related unions, and in their absence, I would like to acknowledge those that represent the workforce – the workers in the industry right around the country that enable people like me to say, quite accurately, that the resources sector is the backbone of our national economy.

National Safe Work Month

October is National Safe Work Month. Work in mining is often difficult, with challenging conditions on site, and weeks sometimes months, spent away from family and friends. So far this year, eight workers in the resources sector have not survived their shift, devastating families and communities. I want to acknowledge that loss, and remind the wider community what the resources industry knows so well, that safety is always the first priority.

I want to acknowledge the work of unions in making mine sites safer, and in organisations like Miners’ Promise, who support bereaved families. 

Resources: building the Australian dream

I have had the privilege of overseeing the resources portfolio of the Federal Government for the last four years as Minister, and for a year and a half in Opposition before that. And it truly is a privilege to have the opportunity to participate in the industry because the rich resources history of Australia is an integral part of our national story.

Our endowment of natural resources – the geology of this continent is the factor that we can never influence, and never change. What we make of what lies beneath us, is another story altogether. 

Since indigenous Australians mined ochre for art, and flint and stone for tools, trading in resources has been integral to the development of this nation. 

From the first export of coal from Newcastle to India in 1799, to the great Victorian goldrushes in Ballarat and Bendigo, from which flowed the opening of the goldfields of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie - and that great movement of prospectors from east to west that quite literally enabled our Federation. 

More recently, the vast iron ore mines of the Pilbara and the coalfields of the Hunter region and Bowen Basin, the oil and gas from the Bass Strait in the South and from our northern oceans that land in Dampier and Darwin – all these places have produced, over many decades, the materials that have built Australia’s modern economy and transformed Australian society.

Our geological inheritance, gifted by nothing other than time, has been the foundation of our economic strength, helping us become a world-renowned global resources exporter. 

Our natural resources have made us what we are today. 

They have brought about, and sustained, our national prosperity. They are an integral part of our national story, and even our national character.

But, of course, those resources don’t dig themselves up, and generations of Australians, locals and migrants from around the world, have worked, and have kept on working, to turn that geological potential into true and enduring value.

We sit here today in comfort enjoying a meal thanks to the agriculture sector, but the ABC broadcasts this speech and the gallery is able to do a quick factcheck on a mobile device because of modern technology and all of that technology is here today thanks to miners, the mining industry and all who work within it.

Some may have heard the report of the Newcastle Knights coach Justin Holbrook, who at the start of their remarkable NRL season, took his players underground into the Myuna Colliery. Their reactions are instructive. Halfback Sandon Smith said:

“It gives you a perspective on life. We get to come out here in the sun every day and run around with a footy and throw it around. That’s our life.”

“They’re getting no credit down there, no-one’s patting them on the back when they’re down there doing 12-hour shifts in the dark. We get all the rewards up here.”

The league players learned something that I wish more people would pick up on: many coal miners spend 12 hours at a time underground, often during the day, it’s dark when they end their shift, so they regularly go 24 hours without sunlight. 

Similarly, workers offshore are on offshore swings for weeks at a time, away from family and friends, working in some of the harshest conditions on the planet. 

It is not for everyone. But those that do it, deserve their rewards, and deserve our thanks.

Evolving roles of natural resources

The foundational role of resources in our economy and its contribution to our national resilience is generally accepted. There is certainly no alternative or replacement for it.

What is less understood is the significant role our resources sector plays in our ongoing national security; in our sovereign capability and how critically important the next chapter of resource development will be to further our national interest.

The idea is not new: resources have always been linked to national security. I’ve spoken before about the role of the remote Wodgina mine in WA, nationalised by the Australian Government in 1943 as part of the war effort – and to allow for the bulk airlift of tantalite and beryl ore to the US for allied armaments. 

Just as Australia’s coal, LNG and uranium is absolutely critical to the energy security of our region, our critical minerals will be essential to our own future national security.

Energy

It is Australia’s vital role to play to ensure our neighbours have the energy they require. Our steady and reliable supply of energy exports have been a major factor in the peace and prosperity our region has enjoyed for almost half a century. 

We have done this for decades and that will continue, but increasingly it is our critical minerals and rare earths that are taking on enormous significance in strategic decision making. 

As the world transitions towards more renewables, Australia will remain a trusted partner in the supply chains the world needs.

We must continue to take seriously our responsibility to lead globally on critical minerals and rare earths. 

Developing this sector is a strategic imperative for governments – not least because these particular resources are essential inputs to energy, communications, advanced technologies and – increasingly – to the defence industry. 

While our energy exports ensure our pivotal role in the region, our critical minerals and rare earths provide Australia with a unique relevance on the world stage. 

But for a country like ours that depends upon open global trade – the very significant challenge of a broken international market in critical minerals, dominated by a single player, must be overcome. 

It wasn’t always like this. In the 1960s, the United States and Europe were the centre of gravity in rare earths processing. By the 1990s that capacity – including expertise in mining, separation and refining – had all but evaporated. 

As profit margins narrowed, growing environmental complexity, governments unwilling to manage those challenges, and the availability of simpler alternative industries meant the western world outsourced the whole enterprise.

By contrast, for decades, China recognised minerals processing as a strategically important industry and built it up to such an extraordinary scale that mid-stream and downstream global supply chains are now wholly concentrated in that one country.  This would be less of an issue but for the rapid increase in recent years in export controls, restrictions and bans across the whole chain of critical minerals and rare earths production.

Let me set out the scale of the challenge: Australia has had to start – almost from scratch – to build an industry that our largest trading partner and second biggest economy in the world has invested in massively and consistently for three decades. 

Pioneers of this industry have been highlighting this problem for years. I acknowledge their persistence and thank them for their efforts working with our government to overcome the challenge.

We have some advantages. Our geology. And our world-leading resources sector.

The truth is, together we are making genuine progress in meeting this challenge. 

Australia is stepping up to its responsibility to lead on critical minerals globally.

Australians can rightly be proud of what we have achieved together. A country of 28 million people, we have mobilised one of the largest strategic financial support packages anywhere in the world, with the sole purpose of securing our national interest and national security by reinvigorating critical minerals and rare earths mining and processing capacity here at home. 

Without doubt, the scale of taxpayer support is significant, but it is a package that meets the scale of the challenge, given what projects in Australia confront: opaque markets, shaped by concentrated market power and structural distortions.

Importantly, the government is backing in these projects of vital national significance through loans, equity injections, and offtake arrangements whereby the taxpayer will be rewarded on the upside as, over the medium term, collective international efforts begin to bear fruit, distortions dissipate and markets open up.

And all the way along this path, Australians can be assured that we have control over the resources that will build our future. 

No one country can meet this challenge alone.

The United States, Canada, Germany, Japan and Korea and others are all investing directly into projects right around Australia.

Around this time last year, in October 2025, I was in the White House with Industry and Science Minister Senator Tim Ayres, to witness the Prime Minister sign a new critical minerals framework with the US President - to unlock a AUD$12 billion pipeline of critical mineral projects.

The benefits of this agreement are real and within a year of its execution, projects we named then – are happening right now. 

Only last week I was in the Northern Territory to witness the start of construction of Arafura Rare Earths’ Nolans Project, a project of global significance in the heart of our nation. Located 135 kilometres to the north of Alice Springs, this project will produce neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide, which is used in advanced magnets that power electric cars and steer cruise missiles like the Tomahawk. 

When complete, the Nolans mine is expected to supply up to 5 percent of global demand for these critical oxides.

Not only mined in central Australia but processed there too – a fully integrated ore to oxide facility, hardening both our national security and our economic resilience.

Because as well as providing for our defence industrial base, the Nolans Rare Earths project will create hundreds of well-paid and highly-skilled jobs in Alice Springs. 

And it will set us up on the path of prosperity well into the future, both in central Australia and as a player in the growing global critical minerals market.

As I said last Thursday when I thanked the Anmatyerr and Alyuen traditional owners for their engagement in the Nolans Project. There should be no misunderstanding: their active participation in the project is of significance not only for the economic future and empowerment of their families, and future generations of traditional owners; but it is of enormous importance for Alice Springs, for the Northern Territory and the whole country. 

The deep engagement of the Traditional Owners really is a gift they are giving to the nation but also to the world and the global supply chain of the products that will be made from the dirt that has been beneath their feet and generations of their people, for tens of thousands of years.

The $1.2 billion cornerstone investment of the Australian Government through the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility, the National Reconstruction Fund and the Critical Minerals Facility crowded in private investment and drew state investment dollars from the US, Canada, Germany and South Korea. 

And the very first offtake agreement under the Australian Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, made in May 2026, led directly to the Final Investment Decision.

This Government is committed to building a Future Made in Australia. 

Becoming more self-reliant. 

Making more things here. 

Creating greater national resilience in the interests of all Australians.

And with the Nolans project, Australians can see with their own eyes how we are delivering on this promise. This is a project that would simply not have happened without the determined commitment of the Albanese government, in partnership with the very tenacious proponents and supportive Traditional Owners.

In a world which has in large part outsourced the mining and processing of these commodities to one country, Australia, its resources, its resources industry – with capital support from our partners abroad – is on the verge of changing the balance. 

Not tipping the balance, or anything so grandiose, but in a broken global market for commodities required for modern technology – grasping 10 per cent of global supply chains in a few short years is a remarkable achievement.

Although together we are making progress, the stark reality is that global critical mineral supply chains remain heavily concentrated, particularly in refining and processing.

But now, Australia is on the verge of becoming a legitimate competitor. 

A great deal of effort – in policy, capital and steel-capped miners’ boots on the ground – have got us to this point. And there is no turning back. 

Since we first released our Critical Minerals Strategy – which will be updated in the near future – the Albanese Government has backed the sector through a range of key initiatives worth tens-of-billions of dollars. 

Which is a good opportunity for me to state again – no Government has done more for our resources sector than the Albanese Labor Government. 

And I can say that because it’s true. 

We have established a Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive and world leading Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve.

We have expanded the Critical Minerals Facility and backed individual projects through mechanisms like Export Finance Australia – thanks to the work of Australia’s exceptional Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell. 

The Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive is a gamechanger for moving along the value chain, as it aims to help attract investment and strengthen Australia’s position further along critical minerals supply chains.

The Critical Minerals Facility allows the government to provide finance to domestic critical minerals projects where private sector finance is unavailable or insufficient.

And the world-leading Australian Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve has and will strengthen diversified critical minerals supply chains and support the development of strategically important critical minerals projects, and ensure Australians have a stake in, and control over, the commodities needed for our future.

This is Australia stepping up, and taking on a globally significant role in critical minerals and rare earths, in our national interest.

National Gas Reservation

This same commitment to securing Australia's critical minerals future must also be applied to the energy Australians rely on today.

This morning, I introduced legislation to create a National Gas Reservation Scheme. 

This is a landmark moment for our country. One of the Albanese Government’s most significant structural economic reforms.

It is Australia’s first national gas reservation scheme, securing the Australian gas Australian homes and Australian businesses need at fair prices. 

Setting us up for the future, powering our economy while maintaining our reliability as an energy exporter.

When we came to Government in 2022, the first thing we had to deal with was an energy crisis: 

• Weather events that interrupted the supply of coal
• Ageing coal-powered generators failing because of maintenance backlogs. 
• Extraordinary disruptions in the international gas market because of a new land war in Europe

This was a perfect storm of events that culminated in gas being offered into the domestic market for well over $60 a gigajoule.

That was unacceptable to the Government and to the Australian people.

The regulatory framework we inherited from the Coalition – a series of band-aid solutions created in response to crises – was ineffective and it was expiring.

Our Government acted quickly and decisively to ensure Australians would have access to affordable energy and gas. We reformed and extended the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism and Heads of Agreement. We introduced a gas market code of conduct and we capped gas prices at $12.

Then we set to work to build something better.

In 2024 we released our Future Gas Strategy, which set out the role gas will continue to play, particularly in supporting the rollout of renewables, for peaking and firming, in Australia and for our trading partners.

Then we commissioned our Gas Market Review last year, which recommended establishing a national gas reservation scheme.

Over the course of this year we have extensively consulted on the detailed design of the domestic gas reservation. In May this year we released our Draft Design Framework for consultation. It set out a headline reservation figure of the equivalent of 20 per cent of export volumes, and the regulatory architecture, such as the export license scheme.

As a result of extensive consultation and feedback, further detailed design work was undertaken. We have further refined the reservation scheme, and many of you will have reviewed the exposure draft of the bill we released for further consultation in September.

That exposure draft included the announcement of the demand calibration mechanism, which provides for the Australian Energy Regulator to vary the domestic supply obligation from year to year in response to projected demand – with a target of 110 per cent of that demand. 

Indeed, the bills I introduced this morning include further refinements to our scheme based on the consultation on the draft bill. Some key changes from the exposure draft include:

• Limiting Ministerial discretion and making the scheme more transparent;
• Preventing loopholes and making it harder to game the scheme; and
• Making sure that the states and territories are consulted on decisions that impact them, for example, in relation to market-wide domestic supply obligation adjustments.

Importantly, today’s legislative package also abolishes the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism – which will no longer be needed in a well-supplied market the reserve will create. The Heads of Agreement also falls away as a consequence. 

There’s been a lot said about the role of gas over the past year, so allow me to be clear.

We need gas to support the rollout of renewables. 

We need gas to have a strong Australian manufacturing industry.

We need gas to continue heating our homes. 

And we need gas to process more critical minerals and rare earths here in Australia. 

Only gas can provide the sustained high temperatures needed at the right cost to process and refine them. 

We cannot have a critical minerals revolution here in Australia without a guaranteed supply of affordable gas.

And we must keep developing gas for export for our regional partners.

We have enjoyed almost half a century of peace and prosperity in our region. That peace and prosperity is in large part due to Australia’s reliable flow of energy exports. 

Indeed, we need look no further than our engagement with energy export partners in Asia this year. Our trade relations are mutually supportive. Our exports of gas and coal support the energy security of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, while their refining of liquid fuels like petrol, diesel and aviation fuel keep Australians moving. 

A successful, peaceful energy transition relies on continued Australian exports of energy. We must continue exporting traditional commodities – like gas and coal – while our export markets still need them, and while our regional trading partners follow their important paths to net zero. 

No two countries will follow exactly the same pathway to reducing emissions. What remains important is the commitment to the goal and a peaceful and inclusive journey toward it, so that we can minimize the damage caused by climate change, while making sure our communities have the energy they need.

This is how we assure the ongoing prosperity of our growing and vibrant region.

Conclusion 

Friends, Australia is a resources superpower.

We have a unique geology, world-leading geoscience capability, an experienced workforce, and a resources sector that is globally recognised as being the best in the world. 

We are a trusted partner in a worldwide system that is placing increasing value on trust over cost.

That’s why we have worked so hard to remain a reliable trading partner and a stable investment destination.

At the same time we need to be pragmatic and open-minded about the limits of Australia and our partners. 

Just as it took decades to grow our iron ore industry and energy exports into the titanic enterprises that now underwrite much of our economic prosperity, it will take decades of work by successive governments to grow and build our critical minerals and rare earths industries. 

Indeed, it is the wealth and expertise fostered by the traditional resources sectors that afford us the opportunity to develop the critical minerals and rare earths the world needs.

Diversification will not happen overnight.

But we are coming from a position of strength.

Australia has the resources, the talent, and the skills. 

Not only have our resources made us a wealthy country, our resources make us relevant in our region, and build our national resilience. 

Developing the resources sector further is about securing Australia’s future in our region and our world.

Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.