I’m dismayed that Australia isn’t doing more to foster local fabs.
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Australia is also the world's second largest exporter of rare earth metals. It does, in fact, have a considerable part of the raw materials required for fabrication already being extracted in-nation.
It would not take much for Australia to insert itself into that global supply chain, as a more reliable and stable political environment than alternatives.
Should Australia tax or ban rare earth exports to try to force value add industries here?
That would go against our position as a stable supplier and would seem more likely just to make customers source their rare earth supplies elsewhere (they’re not that rare).
You're right that doing so would appear to be a hamfisted approach to creating a homegrown economy that is attractive to industry, and would likely be doomed to failure.
Rather than trying to browbeat the industry into slowing exports, provide the opportunities for using the materials here, within the nation. That is done by providing a less-costly way of turning a profit. Less transportation, etc.
This is done by projects that would consume those resources. Government-led infrastructure investment projects can be successful, such as the Snowy Hydro project which was delivered under-time, under-budget, and over-performing expectations.
We don't need to tax or ban anything. We can invest in creating existing technologies here in Australia... Rather than investing in pipedream technologies that don't yet exist like the carbon sequestration investments that were just announced.
This year’s federal budget has large allocations towards infrastructure projects - e.g. inland rail and port upgrades. That’s on top of the state infrastructure projects already in the pipeline.
Heck even the planned gas plants make sense in terms of keeping energy costs down for industry.
Fundamentally none of that is a path to a specific outcome - such as onshoring of value add industries based on rare earths though. Rather it’s a bet that industry will find a way to utilise the infrastructure.
That I think is one of the key problems - all the investments seem to make it easier to import/export/transport... But none of them seem to actually be aimed at creating industry inside the actual country. Our manufacturing industry is practically nonexistent. This latest budget hasn't tried to shift the needle on that.