The Australian Government’s Blueprint and Action Plan for Critical Technologies announced today will help drive innovation, productivity and economic prosperity as well as creating more highly skilled jobs for Australians.
Australia has a strong comparative advantage in mining and the supportive policy framework is important to ensure the industry remains strong and competitive.
There are massive gains still to be made by rapidly embracing technology to improve safety, productivity and to decarbonise.
The industry looks forward to working with the government to fully realise the immense benefits from technology opportunities including enhancing research partnerships and improving environmental outcomes.
Mining is proud to support innovation in our domestic mining equipment, technology and services sector which gives rise to new export opportunities and jobs.
Australian mining companies are leading adopters and innovators of many of the critical technologies identified as being in the national interest.
These include autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, critical minerals extraction and processing, drones, electric batteries and machine learning.
The inclusion of nuclear energy and nuclear waste management and recycling is welcomed given the emerging opportunities with small modular reactor technology which can produce cost competitive, zero emission electricity with multiple potential Australian applications.
