An uncompetitive Australia won’t add sovereign capabilities

As reported on the features pages, Iluka Resources’ one-time dumping pit for worthless “monazite” sand at Eneabba, 275 kilometres north of Perth, is now a money pit filled with $1.3 billion worth of critical minerals, which will be extracted at Australia’s first rare earths refinery built with the support of a $1.25 billion federal government loan.

However, it’s a big stretch to suggest that these unique circumstances are some kind of harbinger for Australia’s adoption of an industry policy approach to developing a domestic minerals processing industry.