The Smart Energy Council welcomes today’s Critical Minerals Strategy announcement by the Albanese Government.
We acknowledge the commitment of $500 million from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund (NAIF) as a good first step to building and developing a value chain that takes advantage of our abundant resources.
The Smart Energy Council, host of next Monday’s Western Australia Renewables and Critical Minerals Superpower Summit, has been calling for ambitious investment in Australia’s critical minerals value chain and the government’s announced strategy acknowledges this need.
The new funding will add to the National Reconstruction Funds $1 billion for resources value add as well as $3 billion for renewables and low emissions technologies.
Further supported by work being done on international partnerships with the Government’s recent $57 million budget commitment to secure strategic and commercial partnerships in creating new, diverse and resilient supply chains.
“The Federal Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy is showing international investors and partners that Australia is ready to be a global producer of raw and processed critical minerals,” said Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes.
“Australia already supplies nearly half of the world’s lithium, investment in critical minerals processing takes the nation closer to becoming a renewable energy and critical minerals superpower.
“The Smart Energy Council encourages the Government to continue ambitious spending on developing Australia’s critical minerals value chain – using our abundant resources to grow our smart energy industry.
