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Speaker 1: The most telling part in this didn't get enough coverage either.

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Speaker 1: Most telling part of the release of the draft of

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Speaker 1: our critical Minerals List, which came out yesterday afternoon, is

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Speaker 1: that we have never as a country developed a comprehensive

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Speaker 1: picture of our mineral needs and weakness. As obvious question

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Speaker 1: there why not. Part of a strong resilient economy is

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Speaker 1: when you do things yourself. See as a small country,

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Speaker 1: we can't do everything. We don't have sort of domestic heft.

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Speaker 1: We don't have a natural domestic market for a lot

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Speaker 1: of large scale operations. Now, in some cases where we

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Speaker 1: do do things at scale, we sell it off. Sure,

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Speaker 1: of course we're quite good at some of it. Farming

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Speaker 1: would be an example, But it's why we don't make

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Speaker 1: cars because when we did it didn't work financially. We

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Speaker 1: are better bringing them in. But one of the great

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Speaker 1: economic quandaries we have is a thing called a current

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Speaker 1: account deficit. We buy more stuff from the world than

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Speaker 1: we sell to it. This is not good. We could

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Speaker 1: mine more than we do. The fact that there are

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Speaker 1: thirty five minerals on the list, and by the way,

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Speaker 1: that list doesn't include coal or gold, means we have

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Speaker 1: a lot of minerals were taking full advantage. Obviously not

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Speaker 1: could we? Why not? Well, because a lot of people

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Speaker 1: get angsty about mining, But as the miners will tell you,

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Speaker 1: it's an increasingly sophisticated industry that cleans up after itself

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Speaker 1: in a completely different way from the olden days. And

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Speaker 1: here is the simple truth. The world needs minerals. We

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Speaker 1: need minerals the same way we need power to turn

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Speaker 1: the lights on. In our current predicament around generation and

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Speaker 1: supplies all the evidence you need to know, we should

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Speaker 1: be prioritizing jobs and cost of living over the ideology

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Speaker 1: of renewables and conservation land. And those opposed are often

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Speaker 1: opposed no matter what. They aren't for turning a fern

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Speaker 1: and a snail beats a job in power, and that's

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Speaker 1: just the way they are. They are allowed to be obsessed,

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Speaker 1: but they shouldn't dictate economic travel. Minerals are an income stream,

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Speaker 1: a job stream, and a sensible, viable answer to a

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Speaker 1: lot of economic problems. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks that be from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.