P323b-330A Hon Pierre Yang; Hon Alannah Mactiernan; Hon Robin Scott; Hon Martin Pritchard; Hon Tim Clifford; Hon Peter Collier; Hon Laurie Graham
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Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL — Thursday, 14 February 2019] p323b-330a Hon Pierre Yang; Hon Alannah MacTiernan; Hon Robin Scott; Hon Martin Pritchard; Hon Tim Clifford; Hon Peter Collier; Hon Laurie Graham FUTURE BATTERY INDUSTRY STRATEGY Motion HON PIERRE YANG (South Metropolitan) [11.34 am] — without notice: I move — That the house commend the McGowan government for launching its “Future Battery Industry Strategy Western Australia” and its focus to diversify the Western Australian economy and create jobs. It gives me great pleasure to move this motion. Western Australia is blessed with a strong mining and resources sector that centres around iron ore, gold and petroleum. In fact, Western Australia contributes about half of Australia’s overall exports in this sector. It is a privileged position for us to be in. The mining and resources sector contributes enormously to the Western Australian economy, and thanks should be given to the hardworking men and women in that industry. At the same time, we should not forget or ignore the fact that the mining and resources sector is cyclical in nature. For instance, iron ore is the single largest contributor to our exports, accounting for $61.7 billion in the 2017–18 financial year. That represents 54 per cent of our overall sales of mineral commodities. When the price of iron ore was skyrocketing—it was at historic highs in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2013, during the time of the Barnett government—we were doing really well as a state, because the price was soaring towards $US200 a dry metric tonne. However, when the price collapsed to just over $US40 a tonne, to say that we were struggling as a state is an understatement. The people of Western Australia are still feeling that downturn enormously. As a result, five years on, our economy is still doing it very hard. The diversification of the Western Australian economy, and the diversification within individual industries, is urgent and necessary. The McGowan Labor government, since being elected almost two years ago, has been doing all it can to bring the economy back on track. Thanks to our many policies encouraging growth in tourism, international education, mining, manufacturing and construction, to name just a few, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed that Western Australia is officially out of domestic recession. During the 2017–18 financial year, the state’s economy grew by 1.9 per cent. We are constantly looking at how we can improve the wellbeing of our state and diversify our economy by looking at newer niche areas. The latest of these is the battery metal industry. The demand for electric vehicles is ever-increasing, because of their more environmentally friendly nature, and electric vehicles will need bigger and better batteries with quicker recharge capabilities, so that they can compete with conventional fossil-fuelled vehicles. For example, every Tesla S needs about 54 kilograms of graphite. Also, the demand for storage of power generated from renewable sources to eventually power cities with baseload strength, is also increasing. These will in turn drive the demand for batteries with larger storage capacities and rapid recharge functions. We are on the brink of a technology revolution and have glimpsed what the future of battery technology could be. Graphene batteries take less than 12 minutes to recharge and lithium-air batteries hold up to 40 times the charge of conventional lithium-ion batteries. Members who have older iPhones will know that after using them for a year or two, the battery barely lasts a day, and that if they have been using the phone throughout the day, it will probably run out of juice by four o’clock. I certainly am very much looking forward to having an iPhone with a lithium-air batteries inside it. The McGowan Labor government has been very proactive in supporting Western Australian industry so it can transform our state into a world-leading exporter of battery minerals, materials, technologies and expertise in the future. In line with that, in May 2018, the Future Battery Industry Ministerial Taskforce was established, and on 31 January 2019, the Premier Mark McGowan and the Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Hon Bill Johnston, launched the “Future Battery Industry Strategy Western Australia”. As the strategy states, Western Australia has a number of unique advantages that will help us to capture this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For example, Western Australia has some of the largest reserves of minerals for rechargeable batteries, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and alumina. In fact, WA has the third-largest lithium reserve in the world after Chile and China, and is the top lithium producer in the world. WA contributes 44 per cent of the world’s lithium and has the largest lithium mine in the south west of the state in Greenbushes. Western Australia is ranked number two in the world in rare earth production, number three in cobalt production and number four in nickel production. WA has the potential to be the one-stop shop for the raw materials needed to build better and bigger batteries. Western Australia has the industry-leading and value-adding expertise. Instead of just shipping our raw materials offshore, we can process them into higher value products, such as processing minerals into battery-grade lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate and nickel sulphate. Such expertise has led to three of the four largest lithium producers in the world considering projects in Western Australia. That could bring $2 billion worth of investment to WA. It would also mean 1 000 jobs being created during the construction phase and 800 jobs during the production phase of those projects. [1] Extract from Hansard [COUNCIL — Thursday, 14 February 2019] p323b-330a Hon Pierre Yang; Hon Alannah MacTiernan; Hon Robin Scott; Hon Martin Pritchard; Hon Tim Clifford; Hon Peter Collier; Hon Laurie Graham Western Australia also has the very best industry practice when it comes to protecting and preserving our environment. It is important that all development and economic activity in WA is conducted sustainably and ethically, while fulfilling the growing need into the future. The McGowan Labor government will leverage on those unique advantages to attract investment into WA. It especially wants to attract investment in the battery-value chain in Western Australia—upstream in mining and processing raw materials, midstream by refining the precursor anodes and cathodes, and downstream in battery cell production and battery assembly. Western Australia has the capacity to refine lithium and nickel. There is also a company in this state that assembles batteries. We can and will do more to attract investment in the midstream and downstream activities of the battery-value chain. The government will help to fulfil current and future skill gaps in these activities. Having access to today’s technology is very important, but leading in the technology race and winning tomorrow is more important. That is why the McGowan government is helping in the bid to host the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre in Western Australia. The government will commit $6 million if we are successful in that bid. If, unfortunately, we are not successful, the government will look at developing a state-based battery industry research priority hub. The government will also facilitate access to infrastructure and funding for small and medium-sized technology enterprises. The Labor government will also work with the federal government on research and development tax incentives. The McGowan Labor government is always looking to do more to benefit Western Australia and the people of Western Australia. This government is proactive, progressive and hardworking. I commend the government for its effort. HON ALANNAH MacTIERNAN (North Metropolitan — Minister for Regional Development) [11.47 am]: I thank Hon Pierre Yang for raising this incredibly important and exciting issue for Western Australia. I know how strongly committed Hon Pierre Yang is to creating a vibrant Western Australian economy into the twenty-first century. Western Australia finds itself in a very fortunate position. Its geophysics once again are bringing home the bacon for this state. In the first instance, after the first pretty sad 70 years of European settlement on this continent, we were rescued by the fortunes of the neutron stars that landed and created gold deposits on our continent. The gold industry drove us. Then there was the great iron ore boom that began in the 1960s. Now Hon Pierre Yang, and indeed the McGowan Labor government, believes that it is the age of lithium and what I like to call the “tech metals”. As Hon Pierre Yang said, we have some of the largest deposits in the world of rock spodumene. Those deposits are probably bigger than Chile’s, because most of Chile’s product is extracted from brine. The quality of the resource here is high, and the extraordinary fact is it is being found right across the state. It is being found in the Pilbara at the Pilgangoora mine and the Mineral Resources Wodgina mine. We have Neometals at Mt Marion in the goldfields and, of course, Greenbushes in the south west. As Hon Pierre Yang said, we also have deposits of all the other things we need to drive the lithium battery industry including cobalt, nickel and, perhaps less widely understood, high-purity aluminium. That is found around Meckering and throughout the wheatbelt in particular. All over the state, we have this prospectivity. We are very proud that we are absolutely determined it is not going to be an exercise in just digging it up and shipping it out this time. We are working incredibly hard as a government to take this unique opportunity that the geophysical resources in our state offer us to make sure that we become technology-makers, not just technology-takers and that we can move to downstream processing.