**Check Against Delivery**
Thank you, Jeanne for that kind introduction, and to the World Nuclear Fuel Market for the opportunity to speak today.
I acknowledge our indigenous partnerships that are essential to mining's success across the country.
Can I also acknowledge and thank Duncan Craib, CEO of Boss Energy – Australia's newest uranium producer and Chair of the MCA Uranium Forum – as well as other international and Australian representatives and MCA members BHP, Cameco, Heathgate, Paladin, Deep Yellow, Alligator and Cauldron Energy; all very important companies within the Australian uranium sector.
It's certainly an honour for Sydney to host the World Nuclear Fuel Market conference.
For more than 70 years, Australia has consistently demonstrated its expertise as a global leader in uranium mining.
Our customers, represented by many in this room, recognise our ability to mine uranium safely, responsibly and reliably. They understand that economic value and environmental stewardship are not opposing goals, but essential partners.
Alongside key trading partners, we have spent decades refining technical and regulatory frameworks to provide confidence not only to our customers, but also to the Australian public, that the way we conduct ourselves is world class.
Australian uranium is globally respected, in high demand, and trusted for its quality control, backed by an enviable history of innovation and delivery that spans all the way back to 1954.
This legacy took a major step forward with the Ranger mine, which began operations in 1980 and went on to produce more than 130,000 tonnes of yellowcake over four decades before closing in 2021. That much uranium alone could power Australia's own east coast National Electricity Market for over 20 years.
This project showcased the importance of his crucial interplay between economic and environmental outcomes. You can visit one of these outcomes.
The stunning World Heritage Kakadu National Park is almost 20,000 sq km and exists as a purposed offset to the Ranger Uranium mine. In addition, the ore produced averted 5 billion tonnes of CO2 with its subsequent use in nuclear energy.
What an incredible environmental outcome.
That foundation was further strengthened by the development of Olympic Dam underground mine in 1988 – home to the world's largest known uranium deposit, with a potential mine life of 200 years and annual production of up to 4,000 tonnes of uranium and over 200,000 tonnes of Copper, plus gold and silver. It remains only one of three active uranium mines in Australia, along with Four Mile and Honeymoon, both in South Australia and both using in-situ recovery.
Emerging projects like Mulga Rock in WA and Samphire in SA show incredible promise.
Mulga Rock is one of the largest undeveloped uranium deposits in the country, with a capacity to produce around 3.5 million pounds of uranium oxide annually over a 15-year mine life. It is a project of both national and global significance.
The Samphire Uranium Project is also shaping up to be a strategically significant addition to Australia's uranium portfolio, with plans to produce 1.2 million pounds of uranium oxide annually, commencing around 2027. The beauty of this project is the proximity to infrastructure, being just 20 kms from Whyalla, a battle-hardened town in South Australia that certainly deserves some good news.
So there is no questioning Australia's potential in delivering uranium to a world in desperate need of a fuel source that generates reliable electricity with no greenhouse gas emissions. As I always say, the world needs what Australia has in spades.
But a closer look at the numbers reveals we're only scratching the surface of Australia's vast potential – not just to lead the world in uranium extraction, but to become a key player in the global push to Net Zero.
Australia holds the world's largest uranium reserves – an estimated 1,684,100 tonnes, accounting for 28 per cent of global known resources.
Yet despite this natural advantage, we remain dramatically underutilised in the global market; a resource superpower playing the part of a bridesmaid.
In 2022, Australia produced just 4,553 tonnes of uranium, making us the fourth-largest producer – well behind Kazakhstan (21,227 tonnes), Canada (7,351 tonnes), and Namibia (5,613 tonnes).
Global demand far exceeds what Australia is currently allowed to supply. A progressive world is demanding more than our constraining policies will let us deliver.
The industry supports an ambition of Net Zero by 2050.
However noble, however essential, the pursuit of Net Zero is a formidable challenge for industrial economies.
It demands a pace of emissions reduction that exceeds our technological capacity and supply chain capability. And, at times, even the public's willingness to keep up.
It requires a complete realignment in the operations of key producers and manufacturers who have long been the backbone of our nation's economic growth.
It's a lot, notwithstanding, its importance.
But it becomes a near insurmountable task if nations and their key industries are forced to undertake that battle with one arm tied behind their backs. When viable and proven solutions to reduce emissions are taken off the table.
Nuclear energy makes Net Zero possible. It makes the impossible, probable.
This is the reality that has taken the energy world by storm; blowing a fresh wind of change through the nuclear sector and the minds of policymakers from Berlin to Bangladesh.
A look inside the G20 showcases this urgency, and gives the best perspective on Australia's alarming isolation from its peers.
As we all know, 14 of the G20 nations currently operate nuclear power plants. Three others - Germany, Italy, and Turkey - either use nuclear-generated electricity or are building capability.
But the real shift lies not just in numbers, but in sentiment. Nowhere is that more symbolic than in Germany, long one of the most vocal critics of nuclear energy. In a dramatic reversal, Germany has agreed to place nuclear on equal footing with renewables under EU legislation, aligning itself with France's enduring pro-nuclear stance.
Meanwhile, Turkey is forging ahead with its first nuclear power plant, and Italy is reopening the door to nuclear energy after decades on the sidelines.
That leaves three.
Saudi Arabia is advancing plans to develop nuclear power as part of its bold Vision 2030 initiative to diversify its energy sources. And Indonesia has outlined plans to develop up to 10 gigawatts of nuclear power capacity by 2040.
That leaves one. Australia.
While nuclear energy is enjoying a global resurgence, this revival is unfolding against a backdrop of growing geopolitical division which only heightens its significance.
For Australia, it puts our vast strategic mineral assets – too often held back by political inertia and burdensome regulation – at the centre of global importance.
We are entering a period of deepening geopolitical division and trade complexity, with a world increasingly being shaped by growing polarisation between major power blocks.
Both sides of this divide are scrambling to secure their energy supplies, reinforce their supply chains and enhance strategic capabilities.
It is a race for resilience. A fierce contest to secure sovereign capability as the primary goal, with trusted alliances as the crucial fallback.
The nuclear sector sits squarely at the center of this global dichotomy.
While questions remain about how a Trump administration might engage with Russia, one reality is clear: the United States and other economies are moving to reduce their reliance on uranium supply from Russia and Kazakhstan. This audience knows that better than most.
For Australia, this presents a strategic opportunity, but also underlines a core responsibility.
It is a huge opportunity to ensure our uranium resources are readily available to a world that still needs much economic development and to our key security and trading partners.
It is needed to not only reduce emissions at scale, but to secure fuel supply chains that are increasingly problematic and unstable; where the door could be closed at the whim of political interference or trade dispute.
The Minerals Council of Australia has advocated strongly for policy reform to dramatically boost that supply – to ensure our uranium supports not just the pursuit of Net Zero, but strengthens energy security for our key partners.
And of course, we cannot forget the enormous economic dividend this opportunity could mean for Australia.
Uranium spot prices are nearing 20-year highs, driven by surging demand for low-emissions energy. Around the world, from advanced economies to emerging markets, nuclear energy capacity is coming online at a pace not seen in decades. At COP28, 20 nations pledged to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a commitment that will require a $150 billion increase in investment.
Australia stands on the threshold of an unprecedented opportunity.
The time has come to unlock it.
This is no easy task, given the myriad of constraints and entrenched dogmas that are holding Australia back.
Prior to the rise of climate change as a mainstream political issue, Australia's anti-nuclear movement was a happy marriage of post-Vietnam War anti-nuclear weapons peace activism, and fossil fuel unions and workers.
Indeed, even well into this century, unions campaigned against nuclear power as a threat to coal jobs.
Many expected that climate change would see an evolution of the political left's position in Australia as has been experienced elsewhere, where nuclear is seen across the political spectrum as playing an important role in a clean energy economy.
But while Australian politics often follows or echoes the trends of the greater West, on this issue, the green left has convinced the industrial left that Australia can chart its own future.
Accordingly, nuclear power has become deeply partisan.
The debate is no longer about safety and waste. Indeed, Australia has a reactor in Sydney, is getting nuclear-powered submarines, and has nuclear waste to deal with now, with more coming in the future. On nuclear power, state and federal governments argue it is not ideology, it is simple economics. But if this were true, they would remove legislative prohibitions. And that is all we ask..
But it is not just nuclear that has proved politically divisive. Energy policy as a whole has become intensely partisan, maiming governments and oppositions that propose bold solutions, and prematurely cutting down leaders who try to move the dial.
For two decades, Australians have been caught in the crossfire of bitter political battles over climate and energy policy; tossed between governments of both stripes, each professing good intentions, each howled down by opponents with competing visions, each left licking their wounds.
It is hard to recall an election campaign where energy has not been front and centre in the national debate, each side scrambling for short-term solutions to placate growing frustration from consumers.
This perpetual conflict, this unending battle, has squashed any desire of governments to undertake broad reform and legislate for lasting change.
It is just too hard. And the risks have not been worth it.
In what is arguably Australia's most over-regulated industry, successive governments have repeatedly chosen electricity market intervention over meaningful reform.
Because reform in this space has long handed opponents a loaded weapon, fuelling scare campaigns, inflaming public anxiety, and deepening the divide between our city suburbs and productive regions.
All the while, our energy system has grown increasingly fragile, soaring electricity prices have placed mounting pressure on households and businesses, and rising costs have eroded Australia's industrial competitiveness.
Australians are right to feel let down.
It's time for that spirit of bipartisanship to extend to civilian nuclear power. It is time to unite behind an energy-agnostic approach, one that pursues every viable option, to the exclusion of none. Every energy option working for the greater good.
For the sake of all Australians.
At a state level, we are confronted with a schizophrenic patchwork of policies that make no sense to outsiders, and gives the impression Australia is squandering that is an immense opportunity.
Western Australia sits at the apex of Australia's vast uranium opportunity, with known deposits exceeding 226,000 tonnes, which is enough to rank the State as the eighth-largest holder of uranium resources in the world.
But this is a tale of missed opportunity. A story of what should have and could have been, rather than what is.
These deposits have attracted enormous international interest and willing investment, with the potential to add a significant pillar to the state's economic might. France is one of several countries reaching out to Australia for more uranium to fuel their 57 nuclear reactors and the six new reactors on the way.
However, the Western Australian Government will not sign off on uranium mining applications. And while it rightly pursues ambitious climate goals, it remains hesitant to utilise a natural resource that could play a meaningful role in global emissions reduction.
Because let's be clear: Western Australia's uranium has the power to lead the world to Net Zero.
Despite its policy of rejecting new uranium projects, Western Australia is still set to have an operational uranium mine by the end of the decade by virtue of previous approvals.
This will be Deep Yellow's Mulga Rock project - and full credit to John Borshoff and team for moving this project forward, pushing through a plethora of roadblocks.
The confusing market signals don't stop there.
At the Federal election, the conservative opposition put forward nuclear energy as a policy to help achieve Net Zero by 2050. A policy described as "ludicrous" given Australia's apparent lack of a nuclear industry.
Well, I'm sure our uranium miners, research reactor operators, and multiple government agencies managing radiation, non-proliferation safeguarding and waste disposal might have a different view of Australia's nuclear industry.
Now, if you're thinking that operating nuclear reactors is another level altogether, I would likely agree with you.
Except that less than 40 kilometres away from the Western Australian parliament, almost $10 billion is being spent to upgrade the naval base to host and maintain nuclear powered submarines.
Meanwhile, just across the border in South Australia, billions of dollars are being invested in a state-of-the-art facility to construct the next generation of nuclear-powered submarines – a cornerstone of the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This project represents one of the most significant defence and technology undertakings in the nation's history.
So if we are trusted to host, maintain, and even build nuclear-powered submarines alongside our closest allies – we must now continue to have a conversation about civilian nuclear energy.
Let's make this about good energy policy and debate the merits of nuclear power. Not get caught in the spiralling vortex of politics.
South Australia are leading on the science and economics and I am hopeful they will triumph over political ideology.
For almost 40 years, South Australia has demonstrated how bipartisan support for the sector can deliver local economic stimulus and global environmental benefits.
It has seized an enormous opportunity from what the State Government proudly refers to as 'South Australia's advantage'.
The Minerals Council of Australia has not shied away from this debate, putting forward its case for change, advocating for the removal of the ban under environmental legislation. Let the market do the heavy lifting in determining what technologies are needed to give us a least-cost, reliable, net zero electricity system.
For over a decade we have advocated for uranium to be treated the same as other commodities, and for the national ban on civilian nuclear energy to be lifted.
Last year we launched a digital campaign - Get Clear on Nuclear - to provide accurate information sourced from international bodies regarding the science and economics of nuclear energy.
We also supported the not-for-profit group Nuclear for Australia on a 12-stop tour of capital cities and regional towns with Constellation nuclear engineer Grace Stanke to hold open and honest conversations about how technology can benefit our country.
At the MCA, our campaigns and advocacy goals are not birthed out of political allegiances. But wholly directed towards policy.
This singular goal guides our path: to advocate without fear or favour for policy outcomes that help streamline and attract investment, build better business conditions, employ more Australians and continue mining's extraordinary contribution to Australia's ongoing prosperity.
And to push back against policy direction that is counter to those important goals.
We advocate for governments of all persuasions to focus on getting the fundamentals of our economy right. That means establishing a competitive tax system that drives investment, lowering energy costs to support industry and households, and delivering an industrial relations framework that lifts productivity while enabling workplace flexibility.
It also means reforming the environmental approvals process to ensure it protects our natural assets without stalling the projects that sustain jobs and economic growth.
These are the building blocks of a strong, future-facing, vibrant economy. Without them, Australia risks falling further behind in a fiercely competitive global market where our competitors are relatively free from such constraints.
On energy, we must get energy costs down and the more narrow our energy solutions the more costs to our society.
We are not ahead of the pack. Because if we look over our shoulder, the pack started jogging in another direction a while back.
This single-minded pursuit is endangering our energy system, undermining our energy security, forcing up energy prices, and helping to make Australia one of the most expensive places in the world to do business. Costs must be brought under control.
Between 2010 and 2020, Australia had a 10-fold expansion in solar in wind output, taking generation from about 4 TWh to 40 TWh _ the fastest built out of solar and wind in the world.
That expansion grew to 67 TWh in 2023-24, while at the same time, coal generation was in retreat.
The plan is now to get to 216 TWh of solar and wind generation by 2030 to help meet the government's emissions reduction and renewable energy targets.
While we support the government's intention to expand renewable energy, no other nation is pushing this fast without backing it up with serious investment in dispatchable power – whether through nuclear, gas, carbon capture and storage or scaling up biofuel production.
We've transformed our energy system. But not by generating more electricity. In fact, total output has barely changed, at around 200 terawatt hours. What has changed is the system.
And as every Australian will attest to, the cost.
In just a few years, we've shifted from a system where over 90 per cent of generation came from dispatchable power, to one where almost half now depends on the weather. And at the same time, wholesale electricity prices in the National Electricity Market have soared, rising between 130 and 195 per cent.
The system is under pressure and we aren't even at the hard bit yet - this is what the system operator's plan is out to 2050 - and we are only at the last red bar!
There are green shoots emerging with pragmatic support by government for gas- the recently announced approval for the extension of the North West Shelf gas project in Western Australia is a big step forward.
Our global peers recognise a simple, unavoidable truth: Safeguarding energy-intensive industries, particularly those who remain reliant on high-temperature heat, demands more than intermittent renewable power.
It requires firm, reliable energy, at scale.
It requires all energy options on the table.
This isn't just a naked pitch for nuclear – it's a call for a genuinely technology-agnostic approach to energy. One that embraces all credible pathways, including renewable fuels and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage.
If it generates a clean watt, hook it up!
In closing, let me say: There is too much at stake for Australia to get this wrong. To miss this moment. To bypass the opportunities in front of us.
We need to embrace energy solutions that straddle the great divide between dispatchable energy and emissions reduction.
We need to embrace technologies that harness the abundant natural resources beneath our feet.
And we need to plot a path to Net Zero – without sacrificing our industrial strength, energy security, or economic competitiveness along the way.
Thank you.
