The independent MP for Bradfield, Nicollette Boele asks:

Last week Australia and the United States signed a critical minerals framework agreement, responsibly exploiting our national resources and securing offtake and diversifying trade partnerships were the aims but the owners of these resources, the Australian people, are left in the dark about how they will benefit. If the PRT for other resources is anything to go by, this deal will not be making much from royalties we collect. What we do know so far is the two companies will receive significant Australian government investment. When cannot the taxpayers expect more detail about how the deal works for them?

Richard Marles takes this one:

I thank the Member for her question. She is right in articulating that the landmark critical minerals framework agreement signed by the Prime Minister and the president last week is genuinely in Australia’s national interest, is worthy in the terms of the Member and will absolutely have a huge impact on the Australian industry and through that the Australian people. Critical minerals is one of the great opportunities that our nation has.

We are one of the five largest – we have one of the five largest resources of critical minerals and rare earths in the world. And the opportunity not only to mine those critical minerals but to process them represents one of the great opportunities for our manufacturing and our country this century. It’s because of the particular items which are used by critical minerals and rare earths which are simply fundamental to the modern economy. What we have faced globally is that while we have been engaging in the mining and extraction of critical minerals and rare earths, the processing of them – a sector that would involve significant employment and significant industrial development in this country – has proven much more difficult, given the structure of the global market.

And that’s why we have put in place a number of measures, such as the Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive, and the Critical Minerals Facility, to demonstrate that the Australian government is there, supporting the critical minerals sector to engage in that kind of work. And that represents a $28 billion investment in this sector by our government since 2022. In saying that, I would add that when it comes to the Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive, we did that in the face of the opposition of the Coalition, who talked about that is billions for billionaires.

Completely failing to understand what this represented for Australian Order.

But it is difficult industry. to do this on our own, and that is why the agreement that we signed with the United States last week between the Prime Minister and the President was so important because what this does is bring together the might of the US government, along with our own, in terms of being able to genuinely support these industries going forward. And the benefit for the Australian people is manifest because what this will see is significant numbers of downstream processing jobs in this sector which currently are not being met in the Australian economy and that will be an enormous advantage.