Right on money miners. End of the year is approaching and the recaps are coming in great. And tell you what, this one's a bloody We've pulled an absolute legend out of the journalism industry. This is awesome. It helped that on you very well, Jenny. Jennifer Hewitt from the Australian Financial Reviews, that illustrious career as a columnist in multiple media organisations. Bloody good friend of mine, like she's begging me to come on but not squeezed her in and it was a chase.
She knows a shit wealth. Of knowledge. I've got to admit I was very surprised at your friends after meeting her like. Different, different walks of life. Yeah. Expectations were high and, you know, they were exceeded. It's a cracking chat so. Yeah, so pretty like everything on politics, energy, lot on energy in in Australia, China, Trump. Resource policy, everything. Yeah. Super, super fascinating chat.
Oh. I was, it was, I could, I reckon if we kept going we could have bird her up like. Alright. Because on our age, you know, doesn't doesn't step not backwards in coming forward. Got some good opinions. I loved it. Definitely so close to Christmas, but 13 days not as close to in Darba. But yeah, it's getting closer every day. Getting closer every day. Can't wait. We're pumped. We're going to go there. Yeah, mate, I'm excited for that. That's going to be a highlight
of next year. But yeah, in the interim, going to look forward to listening to to Jenny on this party. But one thing we didn't mention in this I can't believe I completely forgot to even bring it up. Do you remember I was telling you about that famous saying at Daisy Milano? Get salt Bush to do it. OK? I don't know. Surprised Jenny didn't mention. It it's in the folklore there, hey? I just read like there was the shittest job even if the Danny was broken.
So oh, that's a salt Bush job. Salt Bush contracting that is they're contractors. They will do anything not move and rock from A to B with these beautiful haul trucks. I'll show here only one aspect, contractors. They will do anything on your mind site. Go ahead. And run for a brick wall for. You give yourself an early Christmas present and.
Just. Have this fleet that I'll bring up right now go on across your countryside, moving rock from A to B and making new money via salt Bush contracting. Could not be easier. Details are in the show notes. They're busy. Merry Christmas, When your kids ask you dad, mum what do you want for Christmas, just reply and say I want salt Bush contracting to do something for me to do it for. Me go salt Bush. Can't salt Bush. I would say one of my best friends. Not just because she's.
From the IFR, my great friend Jenny Hewitt. The historical University connection still talks to me. Welcome to our show, Jenny. Pleasure to be. Here, thank you. Sorry to interrupt your holiday. Well, I know I wasn't expecting any less from you, of course. Well. After all the years you've been begging me to come on, I thought I'd finally. Make it. I do appreciate it. I do appreciate. It make it happen for you so.
Maddie, we, we're doing. A favour mate because like you know you're, you're bringing her onto our platform but in the past Jenny brought you onto the AFRS platform. That was Bloody Merts, her daughter. Who tricked me into doing an article about my CFD losses? And I'm like, once it come out, I'm like, so am I getting paid for this? She's like, no, no, it's a great. I've done a lot of attention. I'm like, you stitched me up there. Yeah, yeah. Just demonstrated how you well,
you shouldn't do what you did. I think it was a good lesson. Still doing it. I'm making a bit of money out of them. Those days I don't, right? So for those who don't know, the great Jennifer Hewitt is a columnist for the IFR. God, you've been at the Oz. You've let's just say you've been doing it. For I've been doing it some time. 20 years or so and I'll get in trouble when I'll talk about how long you've been riding for, Jenny. But national affairs, you'd say?
Politics. Bit of bit of mining buddy. Just a bit of every. Critical minerals, energy, the interplay of all of that. International, yeah, everything basically, right, Jack of all. Trades. You're warming up all the conferences for me, the MC roles, because once you finish up, Jenny, I'm going to take over. Oh, don't, don't worry, I'll be recommending you. Right. Let's let's let's take it away. Should we start with energy
policy? Now, we we generally try and steer clear of, of politics because it can be, you know, yeah, you can alienate a good bit of the audience. But I think this conversation is going to veer into it specifically as it relates to commodities. And I think one of the the interesting spots to start this one, Jenny, is the nuclear policy.
You've written a bit about this over the past year and it's become a real flashpoint between the Coalition and the Labor Party. So from from your perspective, you know, you, you live in Sydney and you're right from about these topics from a bit of a different lens to what we see here in Perth. But how much of A sort of hot rod is this at the minute and what sort of role do you think it's going to play over the next year in Australia? Oh, I think the energy policy is going to be huge.
And the reason the energy policy is going to be huge is of course, the fact that the, it's, so the energy market at the moment is extremely dysfunctional, showing years and years and years of, you know, crazy policies and, and refusal to accept reality and things. So you've got the coalition's nuclear policy, which I think they're going to announce a few more details quite shortly before Christmas, possibly this
week, I think. But but as well as that, you've got the renewables policy, which the federal government has and that relies obviously on the great expansion of renewables. But what they're kind of neglected for some time until reality kind of came and hit them in the head was that the you need firming power, whether it's gas, whether it's hydro, whether it's batteries. And basically they neglected gas. They just, Chris Bowen, the energy minister, could hardly say the word for at least the
first year. And then at the same time you've got state governments like NSW and Victoria, particularly Victoria, where they just refused to acknowledge that they would need gas development as well. So anyway, the result is you've got coal fired power stations which are, you know, obviously ageing, but also not only that they're kind of uneconomic to run. And so the investment to even keep them going hasn't been
there. And so like a couple of weeks ago, we we're in this ludicrous position where the the NSW Premier is begging, begging citizens to turn off their dish, not turn on their dishwashers or air conditioning after 3 o'clock. Bloody hell. Shocking for a for a country like Australia with the the abundance that we have that we kind of get to this point. Do do you see a big change in in gas?
Have we reached that tipping point now and do you expect the, you know, incumbent government to really change their tone coming into an election in the in the next half year now? Well, they've changed their tone, but, but of course it's not as though you can say, oh look, we've changed our tone on gas and therefore it'll be all this gas that's suddenly
available. I mean, and, and, and, and the other issue is that NSW and Victoria have, state governments have just refused basically to extend or, or allow development of gas for years and years and years. And so therefore there is a kind of a great shortage. So it has, you know, a lot of it comes from Queensland, maybe from SA, but it's a very fragile rickety system. And just because you've changed your tone doesn't mean that there's going to be a sudden, you know, availability, easy
supply of gas. Where are they going to put the plants over there? Are they proposing to put them in anywhere? Well, gas forward points. Well, they've got, you know, a couple that are, you know, underway, but it won't be nearly enough. And then there's this whole thing about the LNG import terminals where you've. Got Bay in the middle Middle East. Well, of course, you know, there's arguments about where they, you know, the environmental arguments about whether they should be allowed.
But I think the most really the advanced one, most advanced is, is Andrew Forrest's at Port Kembla. Surprise, surprise, surprise. But you know, even then they still haven't got contracts for a lot of the gas, the squadron energy that about long term contracts. So like, I just think it's so uncertain and it all relies on the fact that everything kind of keeps in balance.
And also that if there are kind of hot days or or a wind drought or something that that industry winds back dramatically on its use of of power, which doesn't seem to be a particularly sensible way to run energy policy. You know, in the twenty 20s. Let's face it not. In the biggest city in the country. No, but also the in terms of nuclear energy and of course, even at best, at best what the coalition is talking about is that you're beginning to beginning to get gas.
I'm sorry, nuclear energy possibly in the mid twenty 30s, not really going getting going to the twenty 40s. What our problem is the next decade, particularly. It's also a a change in tone from privatisation of, of energy in Australia right to a, a stance where you know, these 7 reactors would be built, built by the government, or at least you know, the government having a significant role and. Well, government owned, government owned, government
owned. It is a kind of slightly bizarre thing that you've got the coalition saying, yes, yes, we'll, we'll, we'll own all these, these guests, these, sorry, these nuclear power stations. We'll build and construct, build them and own them. That is a very bizarre position. Will that happen with gas do you think? Well, I think gas. It doesn't have to. No, it doesn't have to. With gas, not as much I think, but they've got to have the right settings in place to allow, you know, gas to, to be
developed which. Means it's reserves, but the hold up has been permitting these great reserves to actually even come online. Yeah, well, I mean Vic. There's a skill set. Yeah, and Victoria in particular has been like the energy minister, they've been there for a long time. Lily Dambrosio, despite the fact it's such a gas dependent state. I mean, as far as she's concerned, gas is anathema. And and of course, the hilarious thing is they're also, you know, talk about, talk up their
environmental credentials. Well, because they've refused to allow any gas development, what they use instead is brown coal and, you know, the dirtiest fuel of all. And they've got a couple of secret deals to subsidise the continuation of brown coal because of this state they're in. Yeah, the enormous Loy Yang got got extended and another one in the in the Latrobe region there as well. Just on, you know, continuing on
on coal there for a moment. I got over the past couple years, we saw a massive tick up in in the royalties state based in Queensland as well as NSW. Do you do you think that's now at a level and do you think that could be more politicised as a as a means for paying for this this transition again? And you know, that was to the uproar of the mining sector in particularly in in Queensland, where groups like BHB said we're not putting a dollar more into this state.
Given what you've done, do you do you see that being further used or have they used that as much as they could? They will. The state government in Queensland, well they've now got a new Coalition government there, LNP government rather, and I can't imagine that they're going to increase royalties anymore. I mean basically it just makes it too difficult. They won't increase them, but will they reduce them?
I'm not sure they will reduce them actually, I think in that sense, unless they can get a, you know, big thing of investment from someone like BHP, which I'm not sure that will be the case because there's many other issues that would affect the investment model. So I I would doubt that, but because they're in such kind of dire financial straits or fiscal straits with their budget. Their own state. Yeah, situation first. Yeah, so.
Do you think they're going to be because uranium mornings, the other one in Queensland as well that I think is there the incumbent LMP, are they looking a bit more pro for mining, a little bit less red tape maybe? Well, maybe a bit less, bit less red tape. I mean, you, you, that's certainly their, their inclination. Of course, whether or not how that develops is another matter. I mean, you've always got to have, you know, there's so many kind of environmental rules these days.
So they'll they'll try that, but without being too radical because I think that's going to be an issue. But clearly that's that's where they'd like to go a bit more. Yeah, yeah, well, we're just, we're just talking to our great friends at iMac and talk about people that know everything about native title and heritage and holy snap and duck shit there is some. Oh, you beat your head against the wall. Yeah, and I'm not even running
the companies. Well, it's, I mean, it's very, it's very hard to to open a mine anywhere. Yeah, but it's other than maybe somewhere in Africa, but it's it's. Although it just gets taken off you later on. Yes, Well, that's that, of course, I mean, but that's a big issue. I mean, but in Australia, it's become more and more difficult to open a mind anywhere. And I don't think that's going
to change. And in terms of the delays and everything, and of course, that's one of the things that is always going to be an issue because people suddenly kind of go, oh, wow, I think we really need this now. And you're talking 10-15 years before you begin to see first production at best. When, when the the Regis decision come over about Mcfillimy's like obviously we're in, we're in the mining state and like it's, it's, you know, big news for us and like we talk about it everyday.
But like in Sydney and Melbourne, like what's the does the, is the general public that aware of what goes on in mining and and that sort of stuff specifically whether it's in NSW or not, what's the vibe like over there? Well, I think for anybody who's in the mining industry in those states, obviously it's huge. But I think it's a very, very different vibe in NSW and Victoria.
It's, you know, it's a bit as, you know, like like little kids when, when you get a quarter milk and they think the milk comes from the, the supermarket. You know, I think a lot of people in New South Wales and Victoria actually forget where things come from. So I think the Mcfillimmie's decision was, was a very big issue for anybody who's interested in mining and understands what's going on.
And it also for regional areas. But in terms of the city and, you know, most people in Sydney and Melbourne, I don't think they would have heard of it or paid much attention. What are the extent they did they think, Oh, well, that's you know, that's a good idea. Yeah, what are they interested in? Mostly over there Rugby league poker machines. I mean, it's, it's the, it's the West world in a, in a microcosm, right?
Yeah. What's the US opened a few mines in the past few decades and Europe's barely, barely got an operation. And, you know, there's protests in the street when you open a, when you want to open one lithium mine or something like that. So it's kind of reflective of of where we are as a society. Yeah, that's like this kind of gap between what's needed, yeah
and what people want. And, and I mean, I did use to think it was kind of quite humorous was when for a, you know, a couple of years ago, everybody was talking about green metals and, and people didn't really understand what it meant, but they thought, oh, that's got to do with the energy transition. So therefore, that's fine. That's a kind of a different form of mining, as if they'd never seen a lithium mine or something. It was very weird. Bloody dash, that'll find you
some of that green metal. If you want to find green metal. If you want to make green metal. The GF is champions. Oh well, won't they mate? But. Actually mate GF is look there is green on the page when you get the the GF is data. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. And you gotta, I'm pretty sure Dash sort of the only company that are doing geofis in the country at the moment. Yeah, they put it on the
decline. Yeah, Mike. And Speaking of Christmas presents, like they've already got 8 gravity crews working in WA at the moment. They've got an office in the heart of WA, Kalgoorlie. Impressive mate. They get mate, if you ring them up and say heard about your money and mine, they are going to give free mobilisation for any new WA contracts for December, January free that is ho ho ho merry Daish SAT you don't. Give yourself a Christmas present. They're called Daish SAT.
Bye Did. I say they've got 8 gravity crews working in WA. And might they're still giving away ship for free? That is, that is impressive. That's a Daish. You are the opposite of the Grinch you are saying. Decades of experience as well. He's just Santa he's he's and not and what not one of those drunk Sanders that are in the shopping centres like the legit
centre. But mate, David, but as we said, gravity magnetics, and that's from ground drone or helicopter radio metrics, passive seismic, soul sampling, mate, anything before you wanna drill a fucking hole, pretty much, Dash, that will tell you where to put the hole. Free mobilisation. What are you waiting for? Oh. What are you waiting for right now? Let's get back into it. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. What did you you heard any feedback of the what was it?
The Nuclear nuclear Energy review that just happened in Canberra last week. Well, of course the the coalition is saying that's a completely biassed, you know, political thing because they talked about how much it was going to cost. And they said, you know, renewable energy with firming was still much cheaper than nuclear power. And that may well be the case,
but I probably is the case. But I don't think that the government's argument that renewables and is going to be, you know, it's obviously cheaper. Remember, I don't know, you probably don't remember. But in the last election campaign, they were saying, well, of course it's cheaper because, you know, solar, the sun's free, wind's free, you'll, your power bills are going to go
down. And nobody was actually acknowledging that with, with the cost of all the transmission and, and, and converting solar and wind power is actually incredibly expensive. And, and so no matter what happens, I don't know how much, but we're all going to be facing
much higher power bills. And your only hope is really that, you know, there'll be technological advances that'll make batteries kind of somewhat cheaper, certainly hydropower, I think in Australia, like all the dreams of that if you just look at Snowy, yeah, I mean, it's, it's just a disaster really in terms of the cost of that. So I I feel. That that's the fear of the government. No, not working, won't be working till for years.
Yeah, right. And it's, I think it's, you know, the original cost and Malcolm Turnbull put it up was like $2 billion. I mean, it's now it's. At 12 is. 12 and counting, yeah, and nowhere near finished. And that doesn't include the transmission lines, yeah. Yeah, it was a similar issue to to wood Smith in some ways to rotating boar head to stop working. The geotech wasn't done properly.
And yeah, all of a sudden, you know, you can't, you know, like he can't sink this shaft any any further, you know? Yeah. We're Speaking of sort of CapEx blowouts and and government money. We should talk about any other. So this you know popped up in the headlines just earlier this week. Government gone from 1.2 and a bit to to 1.6 and we'll see if that's a kind of pit stop on the way.
What, what do you kind of make of this and the the broader sort of push for these, you know, very specific rare earth investments by the government? Well, of course, this was the, the 1st $1.2 billion came up at the dying days of the Morrison government. Yeah. And so they decided to kind of go ahead with that. And, but kind of in a sense that was all the kind of gung, gung ho. This is our future.
You know, we've, we've said, oh, we're no longer going to be reliant on, on minerals like like iron ore or coal. Well, there's a whole new future here in, in, in critical minerals and rare earths and things. And I don't think people quite understood how complicated this was. And in a sense, incredibly even more expensive, but without the scale.
And so I so, but, but they had them kind of over a barrel, I think with the government, because they could say, well, you know, we've got the $1.2 billion. We can't actually go any further unless you give us more money. And and you've seen that in a few instances. I'm not sure, you know, really how effective that will be.
Clearly there's a whole lot of talk about supply chains and diversifying away from China and, and this is a, you know, an option for Australia and it's going to be all these kind of great possibilities, but I'm not sure about the economics of any of it really at the moment. And our unfortunate success in downstream processing of light, it's probably not the best as a country. Lack of success? Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. I mean because it's. I wish it was.
Yeah, but like, but again, it, it was that thing. It's a bit like the whole dream of, you know, renewables, but even more complicated because it, it sounds like a great vision. Oh, we've got all this natural, natural resources here. We'll just kind of make use of them and it makes more sense. And, and they're whether it was Roger Cook or Anthony Albanese, they're they're talking about, oh, we're gonna be this great, you know, battery manufacturer.
And and I don't think anybody had any understanding of how complicated it was, how what a protracted process it was, what skills you were needed and also how expensive it would be. We want to get paid too much in Australia. Well, we can't. You can't compete. Well, in that sense, it's very, very hard to compete. And the only reason that you could compete if people were willing to pay more and have that kind of premium.
And, and maybe in some cases over time that will happen, but at the moment there's not much evidence of that. Isn't that like to the extent Australia's been a tremendously rich country over the last couple of decades, been driven by like selling our raw materials to China and now what we want to, we think we can, we can produce stuff to have like independent supply chains from China. Like it's an absurd proposition that to think that we don't need
each other. Yeah, well, that is a kind of an absurd proposition, but it is also, you know, real that China's China's behaviour has become much more aggressive and much more threatening to stability, regional stability over over that same period. And so it's not surprising that people are going well. Is this, is this such a great idea? I mean, the fact is that China's ability to dominate processing everybody else kind of missed the boat a bit, including the US, obviously.
So I'm look, it's a really, it's a devilish problem, but I do think you would have to be concerned about the fact that China's, China's ability to turn this on and off less to do with Australia and more to do with its own kind of geopolitical interests and the US and the tension there. And I think you've already seen it because the US has now under the Biden administration in, you know, heavens knows what's going to happen under the Trump administration.
But under the Biden administration, they've just put some more restrictions ON Semiconductor, you know, aspects of the semiconductor industry and who can do business with Chinese companies. And China has already retaliated with some of the greater bans and restrictions on supplying some of the rare earths like gallium.
So it's going to be, you know, it's a very tense period, but the so, but the so you understand the appeal, the intellectual appeal of having alternative supply chains, but the business and commercial aspects as well as the kind of physical aspects still to be worked out, putting it mildly. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm concerned that, you know, we'll be sitting here 8 years from now and any other will be $5 billion of taxpayer money lit up with zero return. Yeah. And we all saw the writing on
the world. Well, you know, that's the concern I have. Yeah, no, I, well, I think that's, that's a very real concern. But I guess you then you have to say, all right, well, what's your return if you don't put money in and you just say, well, we just won't do any of this because there's no, there's no other way. It's going to be commercial.
There's two, I think it's two alternatives like 1 is, yeah, focus on massive energy abundance in a lot of ways, like how we're going to have competitive downstream in any way, shape or form with the with the status quo. The other one is, yeah, is is, you know, special economic zone or integrated like industrial parks that have tax concessions which encourage private investment and then allow the private sector to come up with its own investment thesis model,
its own returns. And instead of the kind of government saying you're, you're, you're the person that can do this best. But we'll keep keep tipping up as you have blowouts, which will definitely happen. Yes, well, I think that's right. I mean, Australia, but WA in particular has, is promoting, you know, its ability to set up industrial parks and things like that. And you've obviously got banana and then they've got a new, new ones planned, I think in the Pilbara.
And, but I mean, I was just driving past Camerton Industrial Park near Bunbury and you know, that is actually, that was decades ago that was set up. You still don't have proper environmental approvals. You don't have land approvals, you don't, you don't have proper power, you don't have connections. Like it's a joke.
And I think when Albemarle set up there for its lithium processing plant, that was a kind of pretty big deal and they were going to expand it. Well, of course, there were two things that happened. 1 is that the lithium prices, you know, the collapse and the lithium price. So clearly that's not as nearly as attractive as it was. But the other, the other problem has been it's just so difficult
to do business down there. It's not as though if you've got choices about where to invest, you'd, you'd choose somewhere that they weren't even at the beginning. But if you compare that to some of the industrial parks and somewhere like Indonesia for Nickel where you know, it's all ready to go. And they do have that kind of shared infrastructure, shared skills, shared worksite, everything's there ready to go. And, and yet we don't manage
that at all. And I think that's one of the issues with where the government could have and should have and do something more than it than it has, but it doesn't want to spend the capital investment on something that's going to be years before there is actually a good return. With talking about the Pilbara, it fascinates me that like the quantity of work that happens up there and most of it is run on diesel, like the infrastructure up there.
I just, like I think someone said Rio Tinto choose through 9 billion litres of diesel a year. Like yeah, that's for the Pilbara, the iron ore side of things and everything is freaking huge, what they operate. Is there any talk of putting energy infrastructure in at the? Oh, no, there's a lot, there's a lot there.
You know, a lot of them are like Rio and and FM GB H they're they're building solar farms, They're trying and they've got all these commitments to try and move reduce the the level of diesel. They're still, I mean, the trucks are obviously a big issue. I mean, because, you know, it's just not the technology's not there for for a lot of the trucks to be electric and
things. But, but in terms of the power they're using, there's a, you know, there's huge advances being made on that in terms of solar and wind power putting in their own energy infrastructure. What about a gas pipeline from some? Yeah. They kind of have their own. Base base load like gas or anything to go up there? I'm not sure I'm not. I think they're more concentrating.
There's obviously going to be some gas, but I think they're more concentrating on on wind and solar with kind of gas or with with backup diesel, whatever it's it's but I think you would be astonished because they're so big and so massive. They can put in those giant projects, whether or not they're going to do them themselves or whether they're going to get a third party to do them. That's all become more
complicated. And of course, the also the other issue is the kind of whole native title thing. And that becomes if you're taking over much more land, that's also complicated as well. But these things take years basically to develop. Is there and is there much argy bargy between them? Because I assume that between the like the big three and probably Chuck Hancock in there as well. It's like right, who's building it, who's paying for it, who's using it like because they all
want to like you. You see the bloody jewel rail lines up there everywhere because the how that whole the politics with those big on all companies works. I assume that'd be the same with the energy. Well, actually I, I think that they've, they've learned a bit of a lesson on that because I remember, I remember when there was Rio and BHP and they had their rail lines. And of course Forrest wanted to access those rail lines and he took them to court and it went for years.
And they were saying, well, you know, it just dragged out. But in the end, he built his own and common rather than kind of fighting for common user things. I, I do think that there's a bit more shared infrastructure on and, and, and they kind of all realise now that they've, they kind of sinkhole swim together.
And you've got some quite a bit of cooperation, not necessarily with Fortescue, not necessarily with Hancock, but like Rio and BHP are doing kind of quite a bit of stuff on green iron and how to work together, you know, pilot projects and things like that. So I don't think you're going to
find that because it's too hard. And also it's just the the lack of competition, Australia's lack of competitiveness rather makes that just kind of complicates things further if if there's not a degree of least of cooperation. Is how is old Twiggy going going catching up with him? No, I haven't caught up with him on this trip. Has he? Has he eaten his humble pie on the hydrogen yet? I don't think you'd ever see a
meeting. Humble pie. No, I don't think so. I think it's they've just all recognised it's going to take a lot longer than they thought and that of course that's a very optimistic. Requires a much higher energy price. And so he's the one beneficiary of a very high energy price. Yes. And maybe he, you know, maybe he's import terminal, you know, all that sort of stuff. It's all kind of like, yeah, I think it's, I think there's not enough fingers pointing at him. Fair, fair.
You know, the fact that that he's a massive beneficiary of the high energy price by by the by. All. Yeah, Well, of course Squadron Energy will say, you know he's private owned. Squadron Energy will say actually that the LNG prices are going to be coming down and we'll be at least competitive with domestic prices and they'll be going up.
I have no idea as having looked at energy over a period of a decade or so now, the thing that I have become aware of is no, I don't care what expert predictions you've got, they all seem to be wrong. And so you know, Yep, you can make some kind of educated guesses and but that's about as, as far as you get. Now, whether or not the LNG terminal import is going to be a viable proposition, I think it probably will be only because we've so screwed up our own
domestic gas supply. I've, I've heard word on the decline that Fortescue or whether it's a subsidiary or whatever, you know, I'm making some sort of enquiries into nuclear like because it makes the most sense for him to save the world via nuclear as well as I just never talked about it. Has there been any, you know, rumours about that going around of their stance towards it or is it still firm? No. I I'm afraid I have not had any conversations about that, so I I'd.
Be breaking news. Yeah, well, you know, you can always have lots of abrupt reversals in any sorts of energy policy. I mean, I've got nothing against nuclear energy. Whether or not it's ever going to be viable in Australia, I don't know. But clearly it answers some of the questions, which is what of course the Coalition's going on about. It answers some of the questions about being both, you know, low emissions or zero emissions virtually and and more more
reliable. But you know, we we're talking 10/15/20 years out and I am not sure that we really we will have any idea of what the energy market looks like at that stage. So it's, and so I guess getting back to that point is like this next decade, you see is extremely critical. What is it's critical, but it's kind of like going in the dark a bit. And Australia has managed, I do think to stumble, you know, kind of X.
It's been very lucky. It's been it's, it's built, it's much of its wealth not only on, you know, things like iron ore and coal, but also in just having low cost energy. And those days are kind of ending. And I don't think anybody's really kind of quite registered that. So the idea, for example, that you've got the government giving subsidies to every household to for their power bills and the coalition not saying whether or not they'd continue that it just that's just indicative of a
really, really broken system. And it's very, very different to say like despite all the problems with the US and mining at at at least over there you've got low energy costs do. Do you think Canberra looks enough at Germany, say on the one hand and and the US on the other hand and and lands from no, you know, other countries, No. Answer no. It's disappointing because it's way cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes than you like
them yourself. Yeah, look, how real is it, the energy, I guess crisis and sensitivity over there because, and I've listened to tune into two GB every now and then just to make me feel back in NSW and you just hear about how the light the, I think it's a, it was one of the Hunter Valley plants is on 99% load and like it's literally Tay though as the AGL plants are teetering on the edge of tripping the whole system out. Like is it that runs a fine line all the time? Yeah, it runs.
Yeah, it runs a. Fine line in summer I show all. The time, yeah. And also because there was no appreciation. I didn't mean I think there was in the industry, but I don't think there was any political appreciation of how difficult and protracted it would be to get like all the transmission lines in place. The the days when you can kind of just put all that, just bulldoze through people's property and that was OK. It was fine and nobody could say anything that that's that's
gone. And now getting that kind of community support is very, very difficult. And I think we've really not, I mean, I don't think any, the governments have not under appreciated that. And so therefore, quite apart from the normal problems with construction costs and, and lack of labour and all of those, you know, which have only become worse, there's just been zero understanding, which is only just kind of that you actually either have to convince people, pay people, whatever to, to
allow access. And, and they, and the governments of course, haven't really wanted to go to compulsory acquisition because that would make them even more unpopular. So that's a, that's a big issue. And then, of course, you've got, you know, other hopes like offshore wind power, which I cannot, I just cannot understand that there would ever be a viable business case for that. Sounds cool. Sounds looks cool, yeah.
Just on hydrogen once more, I think it came out in the in the budget maybe six months ago or so that there were further incentives, minerals processing as as well as hydrogen. What was the sort of perspective you had on, on hydrogen? I think we were sort of scratching our head and thought that hype behind that had, you know, been put firmly behind us in the 2020-2021 kind of period. So I mean, I was a bit surprised to see that I can't remember the figure off the top of my head.
Maybe up to seven sort of billion dollars in potential, you know, tax credits and, and the like for hydrogen projects. Yeah, there were a few billion. I can't remember exactly how many billion, but yeah, that's right. Well, I do think they're trying to, you know, place bets all over the place. And so hydrogen seemed like a good idea. And in the sense that it does take people a while to catch up with reality, the the hype kind of carried at foot because it then takes a while to translate
into political reality. So. Five years later. Yeah, Yeah. A few years later, they kind of come up with this in the budget and this will all be a kind of a great thing. And and I'm trying to remember which budget it was, but maybe it was 2, two years ago, 18 months ago. Anyway, I don't need to, but it takes for ages, you know, to then come and again come into place, cooled on it, then the investment market cools on it. Plus up at the time the actual
becomes actual policy. Like, you've got that with the production tax credits, you know, for a lot of the critical minerals stuff, you know, when that was kind of being pushed, that was that seemed like a great idea. Well, now nothing's really much going on in that area, and maybe it will again, but they're not even going to come into effect till 2027. So.
Yeah. You spend, you spend like a lot of, a lot of time in the roles that you've had, you know, speaking with like very important significant decision makers, very like rich people, politicians, blah, blah, the whole works, right? Yeah, like, yeah, like. What are the major frustrations you have kind of like glancing across that scene, like if? You're the major frustrations are I have or the major frustrations you have. I have, yes. And you impart.
On the road What you mean because I'm a because I'm a rich person or because I'm a what just. No, just interacting with. Well, I, I mean, basically, I, I can see how many frustrations there are in business. And somebody said to me, we'll remain unnamed, but, you know, fairly significant minor, but we have a lot of talk about, you know, the care economy and, you know, that's all wonderful and how we need to spend more on that.
There's absolutely nothing ever said about productivity or how to increase the wealth so that we can pay for all these services. And look, that's beginning to change a little bit. I mean, but, but it's very slow. So I guess that is my frustration. And I, I agree that in the end, it's the private sector that's got to drive things with, with the kind of right, government
framework and policies. But it's really only been like almost in the last little tiny while that even the treasurer, Jim Chalmers has kind of basically said, oh, it's yeah, we've really got to do something about the private sector and encourage, you know, private sector investment. And we acknowledge that really it's the private sector that will drive the economy because that has not been happening in
fact. And so all the jobs that not all the jobs that almost all the jobs that have been created are in government paid jobs, that's where that's where all the focus has been to kind of, I suppose, compensate for people feeling that they were not getting ahead so they need more help with, you know, there was well, at the end of the Morrison government, people were, you know, furious that there, there were problems with aged care, there were problems with childcare,
problems with hospitals, things like that. Somebody goes, we just need to put more money into it. But there's been very little focus on how you get to Australia to be a more productive economy, to pay for all of that or any of it. And and frankly, and the other thing is, of course, the industrial relations laws that the government has put in were really designed because Tony Burke wanted basically wanted the support of the unions.
But there's been no big picture reform attempts and certainly no real attempts on tax reform. It's all considered too hard. So everything's very incremental. What what do you think some of the ways would be for the economy to be more productive to answer answer your frustration.
Well, I just. Look straight down the camera and tell them Jenny. Well, I, I do think the fact that Australia's tax system is just completely hopeless and as far too reliant, I think on income tax and taxing, you know, all of those, you know, middle income workers and, and at the same time you've got this ageing population. I think that is a huge problem and nobody wants to take that on. I do think that's a big issue. Similarly with industrial relations.
I do, I think all of that has been a problem and what we've done is relied on immigration to kind of paper a lot of that over. And I do think that there's going to be a reckoning. I mean Australia, I mean it's cost, it's a fantastic country to live in. Look at WA, you know, it's always fantastic to be here. Everything looks really healthy. What could go wrong? Well, what could go wrong is we're just kind of sliding, sliding, sliding and I don't think we encourage that.
But don't even get me started on the education system. So. We can take. This part to patch as well, like the last call it like five years. The the the on oil prices being called like one one 20s like on average. And and yet the Aussie dollar stayed low and like you're you're you're 70 cents 65. So that's a that is a that that is an absurd. Normally they track together right? Like high commodities your your Aussie dollar goes higher. Coal price too. Yeah. So, yeah.
So the the the benefit from the royalties of that to the to the to the government is like what like we are we used to that as the new sweet spot like that. That's been a purple patch. That's an anomaly that shouldn't That is not the norm. Yes, but I think everybody does think that's the norm.
And of course, let's not forget that everybody outside WA, you know, then gets very resentful about the GST, you know, the money that's going back to Australia, to WA, which, yeah, I know that you know, nobody, nobody in West outside WA thinks that I of course being a good WA, you know, defend, defend this arrangement. But most other people think that's a very, very bad idea. But I yeah, so I think our kind of whole tax system is just really skewed and and that has
not, that has not helped. And at the same time, as I said, where most of the jobs have been been in the government sector and the productivity in the public sector has just hasn't moved or has gone backwards for decades. Well. There's been, I know. It's hard to measure that, but it's really gotten kind of much, much worse. Yeah, and there's been a sort of, we'll show at least more chatter about unionisation in, in the Pilbara, kind of tying in with the industrial relations,
industrial reforms policies. Do you, do you think that goes anywhere or do you think the, you know the, I guess the realisation that it's not bad, we earn an awesome salary, those sorts of things carry, carry Australians sort of through.
Well, I think that's a big risk. I do think that's a risk and clearly it's going to be a lot easier to, if not, not organise a workforce, get access and then have complaints because you really only get, only need one or two people and you'll be able to, you know, enter the site and you know, and demand to be part of the bargaining arrangements and things like that.
So I, I think that's a clear risk, but I, I also think the companies are very aware of that as well and they're trying to kind of board that off as much as possible. So if to the extent that it is a problem, it'll take, this is the beginning, but it it'll take some while before you see that particularly evident I think in the Pilbara. But for example in the coal industry in NSW and to
Queensland, it's much bigger. And the the tunnels and everything in Sydney, like Snowy, Audro, they're all unionised. It's just I've never worked with one so I can't. I'll probably give a bit of a blase view, but it's just gives people the reason not to work. Light unions. Well, BHB, you have the experience in in Chile as well, where operations stop, Yeah, they stop. And I mean, they've got. They've always had coal and they've got the coal experience in, yeah. They've got 130 years of
fighting unions, so yes. But also the, the construction industry in particular, I think has been a particularly bad example of what can go wrong. And, and, and in a sense, whether you've had all the, you know, the LNG plants in WA or they've, they've been able to get away with it because the conditions have been OK most of the time. You know, but it's really impossible I think to these days to, to have a hope of being competitive when you've got that
type of level of activity. It's the like the tunnels and stuff in Sydney like snowy hydro and Snowy hydro. Is it like, does it, does it boost the economy a bit like those infrastructure projects in Sydney or is it Sydney that big? It's not even that noticeable. Oh no, no, it's the. Closest thing to no. Of course, no, no. Well, of course it, it means that there's a lot of money kind of pumping through the economy. There is, that is, you know,
true. So it does boost it in that way, but it but it also means that there's a lot of debt building up as well and money's not going to other parts of the economy. Yeah, education system, the University of Wollongong shutting down the mining school. Did you say that? No, I did not say. That, that was the, the big
uproar. So now there's, I don't know if you're referring to more child or tertiary or both, but there's now only going to be, unless it gets reversed, 1 mining school on the eastern seaboard of Australia because you could have been shut down. I don't think University of Sydney got one, just the one in UNSW. You got the Ballarat one in Melbourne, which is more
diplomas, but yeah. But I think that is like that is an issue that, well, mining has a problem in like an image problem, you know, around the world, I guess. But in a, in a country like Australia, I think it's particularly pronounced. And to your point, I think in WA it's a little different because people do understand.
I remember Colin Barnett always used to say to me, every family's always got some connection to the resources industry in WA. And you'll notice that when you go to the airport or when I moved over, I'm like far out, there's some hive is floating around. Yeah, the whole. Airport is covered in and it was just and coming from eastern states it's like you'd never seen it. Yes.
And so I think that there's this kind of disconnect between people's understanding of where Australia's wealth comes from. And I mean, obviously there's agriculture as well. And but, and also, but this idea that it's somehow just magically produced, you know, in financial circles in, in Sydney and Melbourne, which of course it's not. You had this cracking line I'll have to read out in in one of your articles a couple months ago.
W Australians are hardwired to believe their massive contribution to the national economy is not properly recognised in the eastern states. I love that. And yeah, I mean, I think it, I think it really hits home. It's true. I don't think I'll find any W Australian or disagree. Bring on the secession. What about big Trumpy? Big Trump's back in power? You've written plenty and you write plenty about himself and Kamala in the load up. Just go over the whole thing. He's he's not wasting.
Australia get stuck in the in the crosshairs I think is an interesting perspective on on the trade wars with with. Yeah, well, I think it's very possible it it could. But when I said that you couldn't predict what was going to happen in the energy market, well, it's even harder to predict it was going to happen in the in the Trump presidency.
And I'm, I'm really struck by the fact that, you know, markets in general are pretty sanguine about the, what's going to happen if the, you know, what the, the impact of a trade war between, you know, China and, and the US and, you know, much higher tariffs and things like that. I don't know, I don't think anybody really knows how that's
going to play out. I mean, it was fairly shocking, I think to both Canada and Mexico when Trump, when Trump, you know, exactly when Trump, you know, before he even takes power on June 20 announced, I think it was 25% tariffs on everything coming from Canada and Mexico.
Now you don't know whether he's actually going to proceed with that or whether he's going to say, yeah, well, if you stop, you know, everybody coming at the border or if you stop, you know, import of drugs or something, then we'll we'll talk. You know, it won't, it won't happen. It's like it's really difficult to say. But he's got, of course, a Republican Congress now, which, you know, in both the Senate and the House. So that really helps.
But with tariffs, he didn't really need that anyway because you can do a lot just through executive orders and making rules. So but what you do know about Trump is that, you know, he's promised everybody that prices will go down. If they start going up, he's he's going to lose a lot of skin quite quickly. So I think that that's why I assume many people in the market think, Oh, well, it won't be as bad as is predicted.
Because even though he's promising radical change and much more manufacturing in the US, he's not going to wait for prices to really become, you know, inflation in that sense to really become a big problem for him politically. Now, how, how you can calibrate all that and manage it, you know, I don't. I've no idea. And I'm not sure he does either. He must be, he must really want to cause what do you say? He wants to get the income tax rate down to 1315% or 13. Well, I think he what?
I think he. Wants they have federal and state, yeah. But he's and he's but he also wants the the business. He'll certainly cut corporate tax rate quite, quite a lot. I think that was the, it was the corporate one. Yeah, yeah, 'cause he might if, if he's going to put tariffs on everything but get prices down, it has to come from tax, you would think.
Yeah. And of course, nobody in the US, whether that used to be the Republicans, you know, really cared about debt, Well, nobody does, and the Republicans will have. To pay a bit off of your reckons. Yeah. So that's a kind. Of line can fix that one, yeah. Yeah, well, it's all about Oh no, well, the economic growth will just, you know, magically take care of all this, so it won't be an issue. I. Run away from it. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and so is the what's the view out there with I was just sort of JD was saying about the effect on Australia if, if the tariffs are being imposed on China, is it going to maybe promote less growth in China, which is going to pretty much impact all everything we export to China and the amount of it? Well, it it could.
I mean, what's interesting is that the Chinese government just in the last week or so has said much more about, you know, they're prepared to have a much looser monetary policy and much kind of greater physical stimulus. But they've hold held out entirely on saying what that is. And I think they're just waiting to see how the Trump administration policies affect them, what they're.
But clearly, I mean, the Chinese economy's obviously been a lot weaker and the consumer demand has been weaker than the government might have hoped. They've been managing to get away with that, but they won't want it to get much worse. And so therefore I think they will unleash a stimulus. So in that sense, yes, Australia would be caught.
And clearly, you know, as a major expert, if there's a trade war going on where which has a problem for the global economy, then that is difficult for Australia and naturally be kind of caught by that. But, but I think it's also true that China is well prepared to to act to kind of try and stimulate its economy. But whether or not that's more through kind of consumer demand than anything, I don't, I don't know. But it's just going to be a very
tense year or two, I'd say. And military's the interesting one, I've seen that, or is it the Federal Government's putting $600 million in to get a rugby league team in PNG, which is pretty much a lot of money. They're playing to get a big defence base over there. Yes. Effectively, yes, which is all related to, you know, China, Taiwan. Well, that's right. But of course, The thing is it's very hard to out compete China
with money. So therefore you have to kind of try and compete it out compete in other ways and, you know, including, you know, cultural ties and, you know, job offers and things like that. And there's no doubt that the Australian government was left completely unaware and napping when the Solomon Islands signed the, I think, treaty or a pact or a security pact with China. So they're determined and of course the Americans are particularly determined that
that not happen again. So I think you'll see kind of quite a lot of bit more of this emphasis. But there's no doubt that China's, you know, behaving kind of much more, it's much more active, is becoming more aggressive. I mean, I, I saw somebody from the Philippines the other days in charge of the Navy in the Philippines. And, and when you can see what China's doing there against the Philippines, the Philippines have been cautious in how they respond.
Again, they're waiting to see what the Trump administration policies are going to be. Is it Australia going to be good buddies with Trump? Do you think if they're if we're going to D China, America's going to fill the void for Australia or not? Well, I can't. I mean in a sense. It's a long why? Why? Well, no, I I don't think there's any doubt that there's there'll be a very strong alliance remaining with the USI don't think that's going to
change. I do think some of Trump's policies, well, as you know, there's already a large section of the Labour left that doesn't like orcas and the submarines and thinks that all of that's a bad idea quite apart from the practical problems. But so I think that will strengthen that. But I don't think there's any doubt that Australia will, you know, will still be heavily reliant on the US for defence purposes, not least because we don't spend, we don't, we don't spend anything ourselves.
We're actually going to be more integrated than ever with the US, and the submarines are just one small part of that. Yeah. You've also got the away from military, the Inflation Reduction Act, which we were talking about nonstop last year, but it's gone quite quiet on that front. Do you have a view on whether Trump strips that right back, or whether there's actually any material benefits for more than a couple Aussie companies to be
had on that front? That's right, because it's not as if there's been a lot of American investment or European investment or anything kind of like to take the place of China, which is one of, you know, the issues. It's all very well for them to say we want all these alternative supply chains. Well, where's the money? But in terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, again, who would
know? But one of the things that I think they'll be obviously more of a or of an emphasis on oil and gas, but but even under the Biden administration, like American oil production and gas production, which is its highest level ever. So there's there's a kind of quite a lot of hot air really talked about all this.
And the other issue with the Inflation Reduction Act is that it was basically a lot of government money going out to a lot of different projects, including manufacturing projects, including in in heavily Republican states. So it would not be likely. I don't think that either Congress or Trump would be particularly interested in
pulling those types of projects. Now, maybe there'll be some, you know, marginal wind project or something like that in, you know, California that wouldn't get support in the same way that might have. But all these things are very, very difficult to untangle. Is there is, do they go, does the tariffs and the inflation reduction that go hand in hand
at all? Like if he's going to up the tariffs, is that going to make it more, give people more incentive to build and purchase in America and they don't need the IRA as much? Oh, well, I'm, I'm sure that well, as we know everybody always likes government money and once it's kind of given it's very hard to not or tax incentives and things. But I, well, it kind of goes
hand in hand. But with the idea of restoring a lot of American manufacturing for the reasons we've talked about, America has more prospect of doing that than Australia does, in part because of its lower energy costs and lower costs and greater efficiency overall. But it doesn't seem also realistic that you're going to be able to replace, you know, a lot of low cost Chinese goods with. No need another communist country. Yeah, you can't get as cheap as
them. Yeah, I think that's the the interesting angle on the on the trade wars. It's not just one and two things move. You know, you take the iPhone factory out of China, it goes to. Vietnam. Yeah, exactly. And that's what's been happening. So it depends how, how strict they want to be about interpreting all of that. And I don't think there obviously be some people who would. And, and Trump has been
consistent. One thing he has been consistent about is, you know, a belief in terrorists for decades. But I'm not sure that many people would say they'll definitely be, you know, they'll say whatever comes from Vietnam has got made any Chinese parts. Unless it's sensitive, we won't be able to import any of that because I think the impact on the American economy and prices would be a bit too much. Vietnam. Vietnam's cheaper than China, isn't it? It's low cost like.
That's one of the one of the reasons that a lot of it. Was moving anyway this country, That's another topic. Oh, that'll be the next. That'll be 30 years down the road. They'll be like, Nah, we've got AD Vietnam. Bloody good soup, but I love the soup. Well, get the get the crystal ball out, Jenny, for the next decade. You said this is a critical decade coming up with energy and and just just a bit of everything. What do you think's going to play out?
Well, I think federal. Election's probably the first place. Federal election. Because we're going to use this against you in future if you get it all wrong. Just letting you know. Which is why I'm going to sound extremely cautious in what I say. But at the moment, obviously, it looks most likely that that the Labor Party will not be able to form majority government. But the question is, you know, how close they can get for the Liberals to pick up, say
something like 20 seats. That doesn't seem particularly feasible unless there's an absolute, you know, revulsion against them. But I don't think that's going to be they're going to be enough. But I think we're going to actually have a bit of, I'm sorry to sound so negative at Christmas, but a bit of paralysis because you've either going to have the Labor Party met in a much weakened position or I think less, far less likely, but possible. You had a you had a Coalition
government. Well, guess what? They're just going to be stymied in the Senate. I do, I do think this kind of paralysis, yeah. But paralysis in Australian politics has been, it's a really big issue. And I do think the Senate is a, you know, it's just, you know, where where policies go to die. Now that can be good if they're bad policies, but not good if
they're good policies. And it certainly doesn't encourage the type of, you know, restructuring or kind of quite hard policy choices that I think would be needed to kind of change the kind of meandering direction of the Australian economy at the moment. Is that and is one of those around like tax legislation? Is that one of the big ones? That would be a huge one. That should be. That's Jenny's big ticket item I can sense.
Yeah. And so then, of course, then the other issue is, and everybody hopes that this is not the case and, and presumably it'll be all right. But I mean, it is not incorrect to say that the world looks just a lot more dangerous than it did, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago. And it is. And I'm not who, you know, there'll be a Black Swan event. Nobody knows exactly where it'll come from. Yeah, I think Taiwan's probably the top of the probability, so
I'd say. Well, yeah, I guess it is and we'll just see how that works. But I mean, what the Biden administration was always doing, not not necessarily always effectively, but it was building up a lot more alliances. You know, in the in the region that's they they put a lot of focus on that with, you know, Japan, India, whether whether they called it the lettuce work, I think of alliances, which is a
kind of fancy name. But whether or not that will continue, how much more dramatic, I don't know. But I do think that it's going to be a very well interesting in in not necessarily the good sense of the word period over the next few years. And my issue, I guess in terms of Australian concerns is that the politics of that the, the governments and public understanding of that is not really there. And and so nobody wants to talk about other than the fact we're going to kind of discontinue
what we're doing really. There you are. So you're not held to much there? No, there's no specific thing. So you think your first rodeo, Jenny. Beautiful sports. I'm all out, thanks a lot for making the time. It tastes better. I've much more intelligent conversations with you when I've got other people with me to. Assist. Now I wonder why that is. Thanks very much Ian, Merry Christmas to yourself and you may not be the last AFR person that comes on before the end of
the year. Got to get the two gingers on. Yes, good. So fantastic. Yes. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, beauty. That was bloody sensational. Thanks to the I don't even know if the AFR knew she was coming on but she got clearance. Say no now, but when you're a big deal like ready to do it, you just do whatever the fuck you want. That's all good. That's all I. Hope to be at that stage one day in life. We do have a couple of people to
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