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Australian Renaissance Party

A necessary political movement

Australian Renaissance Party — Policy

Provisional

Last revised: April 2026

Resources & Mining

Australia's mineral wealth is a strategic asset — extract it responsibly, process it domestically, and ensure Australians benefit from it.

The Challenge

Australia sits on some of the most valuable mineral deposits on earth. Iron ore, lithium, rare earths, cobalt, nickel, uranium, natural gas, coal — the raw materials that build cities, power grids, batteries, and the machines that are reshaping the global economy. Australia extracts these resources at world-class scale. It processes almost none of them.

The pattern is old and the cost is compounding. Australia exports iron ore to countries that sell finished steel back to Australian builders. It exports lithium to countries that manufacture the batteries Australian drivers will buy. It exports natural gas under long-term contracts priced below what Australian manufacturers pay on the domestic spot market. The resource is Australian. The value-add — refining, manufacturing, employment, intellectual property — accrues elsewhere.

This is a policy choice, not a geological inevitability. Nations with fewer resources — South Korea, Japan, Finland — have built sophisticated processing and manufacturing industries through deliberate policy. Australia has chosen to dig and ship.

The machine age raises the stakes. Critical minerals — lithium, rare earths, cobalt, nickel, high-purity silicon — are the physical inputs to AI hardware, battery storage, robotics, and renewable energy systems. The nations that control processing and refining of these minerals will hold structural leverage over the nations that merely extract them. Australia is currently positioning itself as a quarry for the 21st century, just as it was for the 20th.

ARP Position

Australia's resources belong to the Australian people. The wealth they generate must serve the nation that hosts them. The Australian Renaissance Party holds that:

1.
Value must be added onshore. Exporting raw materials and importing finished products is a surrender of industrial capability. ARP supports domestic processing requirements for critical minerals — lithium, rare earths, cobalt, nickel — as a condition of extraction licences. The objective is an Australian refining and processing industry that captures the value currently exported with the ore.
2.
A sovereign wealth fund must capture resource revenue. Norway's Government Pension Fund holds over $1.7 trillion, built from oil revenues. Australia has extracted comparable resource wealth over decades and has almost nothing to show for it at the national level. Resource royalties and taxation revenue above a defined baseline should flow into a sovereign wealth fund, invested for long-term national benefit — infrastructure, research, education — rather than consumed in current budgets.
3.
Domestic gas reservation is non-negotiable. Australian gas must be available to Australian industry and households at prices that reflect the cost of extraction and a fair return, before export commitments are met. The current arrangement — where Australian manufacturers pay more for Australian gas than overseas buyers — is an absurdity that exists because policy allowed it.
4.
Critical minerals are a strategic asset. Lithium, rare earths, cobalt, nickel, and high-purity silicon are the physical foundation of AI, batteries, robotics, and renewable energy. Foreign control of Australian critical mineral processing is a strategic vulnerability. ARP supports majority Australian ownership requirements for critical mineral processing facilities and restrictions on the sale of critical mineral assets to foreign state-owned enterprises.
5.
Mining must pay its way. The minerals are finite. The environmental impact of extraction is real — land disturbance, water table disruption, tailings management, habitat loss. Mining companies must fully fund rehabilitation to a defined ecological standard before operations begin, through bonds held independently of the operator. The current system — where taxpayers inherit the cleanup costs of abandoned or underfunded mine sites — transfers private profit to public liability.
6.
Regional communities must share in resource wealth. Mining extracts wealth from regional Australia. The communities that host extraction — and bear the environmental, social, and infrastructure costs — must receive a direct and measurable share of the revenue generated. Royalty distribution formulas should guarantee minimum infrastructure investment in host regions, tied to extraction volumes.
7.
Foreign ownership of resources must be transparent and limited. Foreign investment in Australian resources has been welcomed with minimal scrutiny for decades. ARP supports a public register of foreign ownership of mining and energy assets, strengthened Foreign Investment Review Board powers to block acquisitions that concentrate strategic resources under foreign state control, and mandatory Australian equity participation in new resource projects above a defined scale.

Policy Mechanisms

  • Critical Minerals Processing Incentive: Tax incentives, accelerated depreciation, and co-investment for domestic refining and processing of critical minerals. Paired with graduated export levies on unprocessed critical mineral ore to make onshore processing the commercially rational choice.
  • Australian Sovereign Wealth Fund: Established by legislation, funded by resource royalty revenue above a defined baseline. Governed independently with a long-term investment mandate. Draws limited to infrastructure, research, and education — not recurrent expenditure.
  • Domestic Gas Reservation Policy: A defined percentage of gas production reserved for the domestic market at regulated prices before export commitments are fulfilled. Modelled on Western Australia's existing domestic reservation policy, which has delivered lower gas prices for WA industry and households than the east coast market.
  • Mine Rehabilitation Bonds: Full-cost rehabilitation bonds lodged before extraction begins, held by an independent trustee, indexed to inflation, and forfeited if rehabilitation standards are not met within defined timeframes. Publicly reported.
  • Regional Resource Revenue Sharing: A formula-based allocation of mining royalties to host local government areas, ring-fenced for infrastructure, services, and economic diversification. Published annually with extraction volumes and revenue flows fully transparent.
  • Foreign Ownership Transparency Register: A public register of foreign ownership interests in Australian mining, energy, and critical mineral assets. Updated quarterly. Integrated with FIRB assessment processes.

What This Is Not

  • ARP supports mining. Australia's resource endowment is an extraordinary national asset. The policy is to extract that value competently and retain it domestically — to be a nation that builds, not merely a nation that digs.
  • Energy policy is addressed separately in the Energy policy document. Resource extraction and energy generation are related but distinct policy areas.
  • ARP welcomes foreign investment that builds Australian capability. The concern is foreign control of strategic assets, particularly by state-owned enterprises whose interests diverge from Australia's.
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