The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 7, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months. It builds on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building, resilience and Australia’s north.
This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as critical minerals, rare earth, equatorial space launch, agriculture, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. Importantly, it addresses the Defence Strategic from a northern Australian perspective. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia.
Minister King writes, “Northern Australia is central to the prosperity, security and future of our nation and will be the engine room of Australia’s decarbonisation effort and drive towards net zero.”
The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.
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The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 6, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months, building on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building and Australia’s north.
This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as maritime law enforcement, equatorial space launch, renewable energy infrastructure, rare earths and critical minerals, agriculture, Industry 4.0, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia.
Minister King writes, “Northern Australia promises boundless opportunity and potential. It is the doorway to our region and key to our future prosperity.”
The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12223220/North-of-26-south-Vol-6_banner.png4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2022-11-18 06:00:002024-12-12 22:33:52North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 6
This report offers a multidisciplinary analysis of the various components that make up and influence the vast and complex agriculture industry network in northern Australia. It examines the economic and historical underpinnings of the agriculture industry we know today; the administration, direction and implementation of agricultural policy and funding across levels of government; the many and varied demographic and cultural characteristics of the northern Australian population; and the evolution of place-based physical and digital infrastructure.
The role of infrastructure and infrastructure funding in northern Australia plays a key role in the report’s narrative, which outlines the implications for national security, economic prosperity, service delivery, social cohesion and policy implementation if prevailing arrangements aren’t reformed to a sufficient standard that addresses contemporary challenges.
The report also examines biosecurity vulnerabilities, mitigation strategies for those vulnerabilities and their strategic and national security implications, and the long-term positioning of the north of Australia as critical for future growth, prosperity and security. The focus on opportunities presented by the north’s unique nature throughout the report culminates in a set of recommendations for policymakers to take a unified and big-picture approach across a daunting array of issues and disciplines.
This report suggests:
a unified message among all relevant stakeholder groups with awareness of the strategic role of the northern agriculture sector
greater investment in agricultural research to grow and protect agricultural industries (prosperity is key to security)
greater engagement of Indigenous populations, with genuine appreciation for the role of Indigenous people and their connection and knowledge of land and water as the key to unlocking potential.
a cohesive nation-building plan.
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Innovation in northern Australia is thriving. It’s not clear why there’s a culture of innovation in the north, and perhaps that represents a focus for social research. However, there’s no doubt that innovators in northern Australia are seizing the opportunity to pursue solutions that generate economic benefits, contribute to national resilience, and respond to defence needs.
This special report highlights how innovators in the north are at the leading edge of the fourth industrial revolution and draws attention to the challenges they face.
Industry 4.0 represents opportunities to transform, but it’s not just about developing and adopting smart technology. And it’s not about evolutionary or transformative change; it’s a different way of thinking that will allow us to leap into a different future. To reap the transformative benefits from Industry 4.0 we need to adopt leading-edge technology in the best way to deliver better outcomes from the perspective of a wider range of interests.
But there are barriers. Australia has regulatory and standards frameworks and mechanisms that have evolved from traditional Industry 2.0 process thinking and Industry 3.0 manufacturing. There are inherent conflicts within and between sectors that safeguard the status quo of outdated and broken supply chains and wasteful manufacturing paradigms.
Through the lens of real experiences and success stories, this special report shines a light on the opportunities and challenges, and highlights what’s needed to better harness those opportunities. In particular, we need to: • Drive national capability through a philosophical positioning that’s supported by practical examples of innovation. • Acknowledge that economic theory underpinned by a need to have large-scale manufacturing and production lines for viability is thinking not aligned with the opportunity that Industry 4.0 presents. • Align government thinking and practice with the growing environmental, social and governance mindset of business and the growing expectations of investors, consumers and the community. Northern innovators have a commitment to Australia, its future and the kind of world that they want to create for future generations. Thus, they conceptualise, create and deliver by leveraging Industry 4.0 thinking and technology.
Technology doesn’t drive change, but how they use it does. This is sovereign capability in action.
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12222031/SR188-Breaking_down_barriers-banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2022-08-03 06:00:002024-12-12 22:22:42Breaking down the barriers to Industry 4.0 in the north
The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months, building on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building and Australia’s north.
This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as biosecurity, infrastructure, critical communications, cyber-resilience, maritime infrastructure, foreign investment, space, and Indigenous knowledge-sharing. It also features a foreword by ASPI’s new Executive Director, Justin Bassi.
The 19 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12221713/North-of-26-south-Vol-5_banner.png4491350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2022-07-19 06:00:002024-12-12 22:19:19North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 5
The Australian outback has become the stage for a renewed push to safeguard the future of western industries and break a near complete reliance on critical minerals from China.
China produces and supplies almost all the minerals used in the production of renewable energy products, mobile phones, electric vehicles and even the batteries used in the US joint-strike fighter.
The federal government will today announce $240 million to develop a rare earth minerals industry in Australia with senior ministers openly listing China as one reason to do so.
“China currently dominates around 70 to 80 per cent of global critical minerals production and continues to consolidate its hold over these supply chains,” Energy and Industry Minister Angus Taylor said in a statement.
“This initiative is designed to address that dominance.”
Australia has enormous volumes of rare earth minerals but until now no domestic production capacity has been built, partly because China has refined the minerals cheaply, despite environmental criticisms.
Strategic concerns about China’s market dominance have increased since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which exposed Europe’s reliance on Russia for energy.
“We know that Russia provides very large amounts of thermal coal and gas into Europe and that is now a strategic challenge for them — we want to make sure Australia is never in that position,” Resources Minister Keith Pitt said.
“We do need to ensure that no matter what we do, we make sure that these concentrated supply chains in some areas that we currently have do get broken up into the future.”
The funding announced today includes $30 million for a rare earth minerals separation plant run by Arafura Resources in Central Australia.
Arafura managing director Gavin Lockyer said its Nolan’s Project near Aileron would harness one of the world’s biggest stockpiles of neodymium-praseodymium, which is used to make incredibly strong magnets used in wind turbines and solar farms.
“[Nolan’s] will be Australia’s first vertically integrated project of its kind and world’s second biggest non-China source of rare earths, processing on site to meet more than 5 per cent of global demand,” Mr Lockyer said.
Australian miner Lynas, which produces rare earths for electric cars and Tomahawk cruise missiles, was recently given final approval to construct a rare earth refinery in Kalgoorlie.
Lynas has moved some of its operations outside its production base in Malaysia, where it has faced sustained criticism from environment groups.
Given the strategic risk posed by China’s market dominance, the United States military has taken a financial interest in Lynas, providing initial funding for a processing plant in Texas.
‘We’ve definitely been asleep’
In 2019, China threatened to ban exports of rare earth minerals to the United States during a protracted trade war with Washington.
The threat would have hit the production of military equipment along with a booming renewable energy industry.
Rare earths are an essential ingredient for technologies including wind turbines.(Supplied: Michael Abrahams)
Dr John Coyne, an analyst at the partially Defence funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said other strategic allies had been targeted too.
“Ten years ago, China reduced the availability of rare earth to Japan in punishment over issues to deal with the South China Sea,” Mr Coyne said.
Mr Coyne said western nations were increasingly abandoning free market thinking to address the strategic risk.
“I think this is one of those cases where if we don’t want to be exposed and have vulnerable supply chains then there is a need for the government to intervene in the economy and promote national resilience,” Mr Coyne said.
“[China has] done a great job at being able to supply everything the western world needed — whether it be metals or magnets — and they supply them a lot cheaper than what the western world would be able to produce.”
The head of one rare earth minerals company, Northern Minerals, told the ABC the strategic vulnerability was significant.
“China could stop any time in the next three to five years exporting anything to do with heavy rare earths (…) and only supply internal to Chinese industries,” chief executive Mark Tory said.
“We’ve definitely been asleep but the reason we’ve been asleep is because [China] has done a great job at being able to supply everything the western world needed.”
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svg00markohttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgmarko2022-03-16 13:30:002024-11-10 13:31:44Government commits $240 million to critical minerals projects in mission to end Australia’s reliance on China
In line with previous Agenda for Change publications from 2016 and 2019, this piece is being released in anticipation of a federal election as a guide for the next government within its first months and over the full term. Our 2022 agenda acknowledges that an economically prosperous and socially cohesive Australia is a secure and resilient Australia.
ASPI’s Agenda for change 2019: strategic choices for the next government did, to a great extent, imagine a number of those challenges, including in Peter Jennings’ chapter on ‘The big strategic issues’. But a lot has changed since 2019. It was hard to imagine the dislocating impacts of the Black Summer fires, Covid-19 in 2020 and then the Delta and Omicron strains in 2021, trade coercion from an increasingly hostile China, or the increasingly uncertain security environment.
Fast forward to today and that also applies to the policies and programs we need to position us in a more uncertain and increasingly dangerous world.
Our Agenda for change 2022 acknowledges that what might have served us well in the past won’t serve us well in this world of disruption. In response, our authors propose a smaller number of big ideas to address the big challenges of today and the future. Under the themes of getting our house in order and Australia looking outward, Agenda for change 2022 focuses on addressing the strategic issues from 2021 and beyond.
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12220446/AgendaForChange2022-banner.jpg4501350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2022-02-02 06:00:002024-12-12 22:09:20Agenda for change 2022: Shaping a different future for our nation
This special report explores the future of maritime sustainment in northern Australia through the lens of regional maintenance centres proposed under the Department of Defence’s Plan Galileo. Included in the report is consideration of the strategic environment and implications for the north, overview of the Australian Navy maritime sustainment, Plan Galileo, and discussion of US maritime sustainment model.
Maritime sustainment in Australia’s north presents far-reaching opportunities and new challenges for the Department of Defence, industry and local governments. Traditional Defence and industry models used in Australia’s southern states have less utility in the north if they aren’t adapted to the region’s unique economic context. As such, a deeper understanding of industry capability in the north coupled with greater collaboration and partnering is needed to overcome those challenges and take advantage of the opportunities.
In developing the report, the authors consulted a wide range of stakeholders. They included representatives from the Department of Defence, people representing the interests of the state, territory and local governments in northern Australia, port operators in Australia’s north, business organisations and the defence industry. The report highlights opportunities that could arise from improved collaboration between Defence, local governments, defence industry and SMEs. This report has again reinforced the need for the Australia government to articulate how it will utilise northern Australia’s strategic geography as a strength both now and in a future conflict if deterrence fails.
The Australian Government needs to consider how to harness interests from different fields and identify points where the government may have to intervene with policies—and investments—that shape and enhance market forces. That’s a big shift from just thinking through how it ‘might’ take advantage of market forces and existing capacity and capability as circumstances change.
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Fifteen kilometres from Darwin CBD, there’s a plot of mud and dirt that is about to become a $270 million asset for the United States defence force.
By September 2023, the East Arm fuel storage facility is expected to be able to store 300 million litres of military jet fuel to support American defence activities in the Northern Territory and Indo-Pacific region.
Dr Teagan Westerdorf speaks to ABC News. Read the full piece here.
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The 27 essays in the collection demonstrate that Australia’s north—that great sweep of territory from Rockhampton in the east to Onslow in the west, taking in Townsville, Bamaga, Darwin and Broome—is about a whole lot more than even what makes its way into the national debate (borders, quarantine facilities, mining, agricultural and energy projects, and small but key defence facilities).
Between them, the authors of this volume cover proposals for an Indigenous civil defence force to work domestically and in our near region, the opportunities for processing critical minerals and producing rare-earth magnets, a broader way of thinking about and doing nation-building that gets beyond waiting for one big first-mover investor or entrepreneur before anything happens, and, of course, the ways that Australia can better use this huge chunk of the globe’s strategic geography—along with key partners like Japan and the United States.
As thinkers who understand the austere environment of our north, the authors are all distinguished by a sense of opportunity, optimism and even that much-maligned, now neglected word ‘vision’—which history shows is what’s needed to advance the development and prosperity of the north of our continent.
http://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/14231643/SI167-North-of-26_v4-banner.jpg4511350nathanhttp://aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/16232551/ASPI-CMYK_SVG.svgnathan2021-12-17 06:00:002024-12-14 23:18:42North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 4
