Introduction

I’m sorry I can’t be there in person with you today. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be involved – and I thank the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute for their very generous invitation.

I begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and all First Nations people present.

The prolonged marine heatwave and algal bloom in South Australia is just one instance of the impacts of global warming – one that we can’t ignore.

The Australian Government has legislated to reduce emissions to 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and to achieve net zero by 2050.

And while domestic action on climate and Australia’s leadership in global action is fundamental to progress, I am particularly focused in my portfolio on how Australia attracts the private capital needed to finance the net zero transition.

To help mobilise that capital, investors need access to credible and comparable information.

I want to congratulate the Institute for its critical work for Australia in helping to make that information available through the sustainable finance taxonomy.

That taxonomy is integral to identifying economic activities that really deliver on our key climate objectives.

Consistent taxonomies and definitions around the world (an otherwise dry subject) – and ambitious institutional investors and the private sector – are fundamental to the Government achieving its agenda in partnership with the private sector and investment community.

If you allow me the partisan observation – this sitting fortnight, the Coalition has shown that it has learnt nothing from the recent election. 

The Australian people and the business community are squarely focused on how we unlock the benefits from this major economic transformation – unlike the Coalition, which is still stuck in an endless spin cycle of imported ideology – the boneyard of extremist politics that held Australia back for more than a decade.

Future Made in Australia and Net Zero Plan

The Albanese Labor Government knows how important it is to offer a steady and predictable, certain and pragmatic policy agenda.

The Future Made in Australia plan is our signpost for investors to have confidence in low-emissions activities and technologies.

As is the Net Zero Plan, which will set out how Australia will transition to a net zero economy by 2050. 

As the world reduces emissions, Future Made in Australia is about making sure that Australia makes the most of this global economic transformation, maximising the economic and industrial benefits, and securing Australia’s place in a challenging and changing strategic landscape.

The global investment and trade environment is changing rapidly. 

Supply chains are under pressure, with increasing fragmentation and intensifying global competition. 

New opportunities in clean energy industries are emerging that will shape the future of the global economy over the next decade and beyond. 

This is where I invite you and your members to think creatively about how Australia’s financial sector can support the industrial transformations Australia needs to thrive.  

Given our critical and abundant natural endowments and skilled workforce, Australia is well positioned to strengthen supply chains and become an indispensable part of the low carbon global economy. 

The Albanese Labor Government’s plan for a Future Made in Australia is central to this transformation. 

It is focused on encouraging and facilitating the private sector investment needed to make the most of this opportunity. 

And it will help build a stronger, more diversified and more resilient economy, a more productive economy, powered by clean energy.

New industry and new factories that generate secure, well-paid jobs and deliver benefits to communities across the country, in the national interest.

Under this plan, we’re making smart investments that give us the best possible shot at establishing and growing our green metals sector.

The agenda includes the $1.7 billion FMA Innovation fund which we announced in our last Budget. 

This is designed to support priority sectors, across the innovation pipeline from research to demonstration at scale.

Accelerating new technologies and processes to commercial readiness will be the Innovation Fund’s primary focus.

Priority sectors identified in the 2024-25 Budget include:

• Renewable hydrogen
• Low carbon liquid fuels
• Clean energy manufacturing, including battery and solar panel supply chains
• Critical minerals processing
• Green metals

Australia is one of just a handful of countries world-wide with vertically integrated steel and aluminium industries.

We do it all here in Australia – from mining the ores and metallurgical coal through to smelting and fabrication.

We are: 

• the world’s largest iron ore producer
• the world’s second-largest producer of bauxite (the primary ore of aluminium), and
• the largest aluminium exporter in the Asian region.

We’re also projected to produce 49 percent of the world’s high purity alumina by the end of 2025.

Moreover, our iron, steel, alumina, and aluminium producers support key sectors of the Australian economy: construction, defence, and agriculture. 

In short, they underwrite critical sovereign Australian capabilities. 

And they are critical to our economic prosperity through international exports.

Just as importantly, these industries offer good blue-collar and engineering jobs in our regions and outer suburbs.

They are the lifeblood of regions like the Illawarra, Whyalla, Gladstone, Portland, and the Tamar Valley in Tasmania. 

We are creating new economic opportunities for regions and outer suburbs like Kwinana, Port Hedland and Geraldton.

Annual exports of iron, steel, alumina, and aluminium are valued at about $140 billion annually.

That’s nearly three times the $51 billion Australia earned from international education in 2024.^[1]

Our metals smelting and refining sectors, together with metals fabrication and mining, employ almost 200,000 people. 

That’s almost equivalent to every working-aged person in the Illawarra region. 

Green metals

Because of the large amount of emissions-intensive heat energy needed for smelting and refining, metals manufacturing is an obvious starting point for Australia and the world’s journey to a low carbon economy.

There are no silver bullets or straightforward pathways when it comes to mitigating these emissions.

The sector’s low profit margins, its capital-intensive nature, and overcapacity and subsidisation in global markets also challenge quick decarbonisation actions.

However, maintaining our metals manufacturing capability through the transition is a priority for the Government.

Firstly, because steel, aluminium, copper and other metals are fundamental to economic progress.

Secondly, because processing, refining and fabrication will give us what we need to make Australia a world leader in renewable energy and green technologies.

Australia has enormous potential to become a green metals world leader. 

We have abundant renewable energy resources, a skilled workforce, a stable regulatory environment and world-leading R&D capabilities.

Developing a green metals industry – and capitalising on our other comparative advantages – will make a significant contribution to emissions reduction while maintaining the international competitiveness of Australian companies.

As our international partners move forward on their own decarbonisation journeys, they are looking to stable partners that can provide metals made from renewable energy, and the technology and energy needed to produce them.

Here at home, metals made using renewable energy could be worth as much as $122 billion to Australia’s economy by 2040.

The Albanese Labor Government is delivering on this promise by supporting private sector investment in those metals projects.

Where Australia has a particular opportunity, is in the production of green iron – or iron pellets made using our solar and wind resources.

That’s why we created the $1 billion Green Iron Investment Fund. 

This will help with upfront capital costs associated with establishing a commercial scale green iron manufacturing facility in Australia, and to encourage early movers.

And that’s why we’re introducing a $2 billion Green Aluminium Production Credit to relieve near-term cost pressures on our aluminium producers as they transition to using renewable electricity. 

Expert advice and collaboration are helping to steward this work, and the Industrial Decarbonisation and Green Metals Advisory Panel established last year offers just that.

Their expertise covers investment, research, decarbonisation, and workforce matters.

I met the panel members just last month^[2] to discuss our investments in green metals and the opportunities ahead.

Their input will ensure we have the right polices in place to navigate the challenges of supporting our industries to make the renewable energy transition and for industry to decarbonise.

The panel will also provide independent advice on how the world-leading Australian domestic green metals sector that we are building can serve as the bedrock for the next-generation industries of the twenty-first century economy, future economic growth and future productivity growth.

Developing and commercialising new carbon-reduction technologies is critical to crowding private investment into green metals development.

Moving our smelting and refining industries to a cleaner future is a major technological challenge.

But Labor Governments have helped Australia meet big national challenges before, and with grit and determination, as well as the bright minds of the nation’s best scientists, we are making very strong progress on green metals.

CSIRO, through its Towards Net Zero Mission program, is involved in a range of green metals initiatives, including low-emission steel production and decarbonisation pathways.

The CSIRO also actively engaging with major iron producers testing technologies for improved ore processing, hydrogen-based ironmaking^[3], and carbon capture.

There’s also the potential to use hydrogen to produce green alumina.

The Albanese Labor Government’s National Hydrogen Strategy, released last year, outlines the cases for supporting renewable hydrogen use in industry, including in refining and steelmaking. 

We have legislated a Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive and launched the $4 billion Hydrogen Headstart program to support large-scale renewable hydrogen production.

Like CSIRO, our Co-operative Research Centre program is also backing research that meets the needs of Australia’s metals industries.

The Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition (HILT) CRC is developing and trialling new processing and green metals technologies.

Last year, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) granted HILT CRC $6.2 million in new funding to accelerate its R&D.

Together, CSIRO and HILT CRC, have been funded by the Australian Government to lead the Green Metals Innovation Network.

The objective of that network is to bring together research, government and industry in a, dare I say it, “Team Australia” approach to accelerate green metals development, in the national interest.

Many of our overseas partners are engaged in their own industry decarbonisation journeys.

Engaging with, and supporting, them in their objectives makes clear economic and strategic sense.

The Australian Government already has bilateral mechanisms in place for engagement on green metals with India, Japan, South Korea and Germany.

The Prime Minister, in his recent trip to China, acknowledged the importance of working with our international trading partners to pursue steel decarbonisation. 

The Australian and Chinese governments agreed to establish a new policy dialogue on this sector.

And Australia will engage in multilateral forums to shape the green metals market rules and norms.

These include the OECD Steel Committee, the International Organisation for Standardisation, and the Climate Club.

Conclusion

Transformation of industry is critical to reaching Australia’s net zero ambitions, and it’s central to charting a safe and secure, prosperous future for Australia in our region.

Together, we will all play a role.

Realising the government’s Future Made in Australia ambitions will require investment, and a willingness to take risks, and a commitment to working together.

I recognise the challenges inherent for first-movers, and that new technologies and industry change can be uncertain.

But it’s much riskier not to embrace this epoch-defining challenge.

One way to de-risk and secure investment is to modernise our financial markets and ensure they shape global standards.

The world has changed so rapidly in recent years. Future Made in Australia is about making sure Australia is well-positioned in this fast-moving economic and strategic environment.

As we look to advance our Future Made in Australia agenda and progress our net zero goals together, strategic investment in priority sectors will be one of my portfolio priorities.

Our ambition is a revitalised Australian manufacturing sector in a more productive, more resilient, more diversified economy.  

I look forward to working with all of you, and listening to all of you, as we work together to realise this important goal.

Thank you.

ENDS

[1] Department of Education: Education export income for the calendar year 2024

[2] Senator Tim Ayres Facebook post 12 June 2025.

[3] CSIRO How hydrogen can help to decarbonise iron making July 2024