As governments across the country seek to capitalise on the growing demand for critical minerals and rare earths, experts warn that, without proper investment, Australia could miss out on a share of a much larger industry: electric vehicles.
From making EV batteries to manufacturing the vehicles themselves, the further you move up the value chain, the bigger the potential market is.
According to Sustainable Minerals Institute deputy director Rick Valenta, the value of all the rare earths produced per year is approximately $4 billion, of which Australia's share is 10 per cent.
"And then you finally go to the products, the market that's $4 trillion — Australia's share of that is zero."
'Supplying domestic manufacturing is the dream'
There are some downstream processing projects onshore, but they are all in the very early stages of development.
In New South Wales, the Critical Minerals Hub in Dubbo is touted as potentially creating a critical minerals boom, and Broken Hill's Cobalt Blue mine looks set to start operations in about four years' time processing cobalt into EV battery-ready material for export.
The investment relations manager at Cobalt Blue, Joel Crane, said a company like his would prefer to supply their product to domestic manufacturing, but the industry did not yet exist here in any significant way.
The lack of industry around our critical minerals is likely to remain unchanged unless there is a national approach by the federal government, and healthy investment.
Gail Broadbent researches electric vehicle uptake at the University of New South Wales and argued there was a large consumer appetite for a domestic supply of EVs.
"Some models are selling out within two hours of the offering being put on the internet."
Meanwhile, state governments, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, have moved full steam ahead and committed to electrifying their fleets and buying Australian-made.
But while many states are on board, Ms Broadbent said the top-down planning had been merely cosmetic.
"There's no plan at the moment for an electric vehicle strategy at all. All it is is just throwing a little bit of money here and there to make it look like we're doing something," she said.
EV industry wants a national strategy and fuel emissions standards
Manufacturing electric vehicles is an expensive industry for the federal government to set up and, while more groundwork needs to be done, there are tangible steps that can push it closer to reality.
Alexandra Kelly, policy manager at the Electric Vehicle Council, said national fuel efficiency standards were one such long-overdue policy.
Another driver of favourable investment conditions for electric car manufacturing would be to invest in areas like battery manufacturing, something the federal government should have started doing five years ago, according to Ms Kelly.
Like Ms Kelly, Ms Broadbent believes that, without a national strategy, Australia's model for using its resources will continue to be "dig them up and ship them out."
