By Peter Roberts The federal government has selected foreign defence contractors and allocated a supporting role to two genuinely Australian consortia in accelerating the rollout of ‘sovereign’ guided weapons capabilities. Minister for defence Peter Dutton announced a $3.5 billion investment in speeding delivery of new missile capabilities for the Royal Australian Air Force and the…
By Peter Roberts I was touring the Adelaide factory and R&D centre of ballistic armour manufacturer Xtek yesterday when news came through that it had received an urgent order for ballistic armour for $2.15 million – its third from unnamed international customers within a month. Xtek’s order takes total sales over the past 30 days…
Queensland-based Line Hydrogen has announced their first commercial-scale green hydrogen plant in Tasmania set to begin construction by the middle of 2022. The company has executed a terms sheet with Climate Capital’s Bell Bay Solar Farm to construct up to a 5MW ground-mounted solar farm in George Town, Northern Tasmania. This will supply behind-the-meter renewable…
By Peter Roberts The federal government has made an unprecedented intervention in private business funding with the approval of a $1.25 billion loan through the Critical Minerals Facility to Australian company Iluka Resources. The massive loan – picking winners on a grand scale – will fund the development of Australis’s first integrated rare earths refinery…
By Peter Roberts The federal government has continued its all but daily announcements of new defence contracts and grants to manufacturers with the news today that Tomago, NSW engineering group Varley will receive a $41 million contract for deployable military infrastructure. According to a statement from defence minister Peter Dutton: “The contract is part of…
By Peter Roberts If covid-19 has taught us anything it is that Australia needs to be more self sufficient in what we manufacture onshore and depend less on globalised supply chains that are easily interrupted by accident or design. For advanced nations there is a range of rare earths that are essential to high tech…
The federal government has announced the cancellation of the planned purchase of the SkyGuardian long endurance armed unmanned aerial system (UAS) to allow for a boost to the Australian Defence Force’s cyber capabilities. Defence associate secretary Matt Yannopoulos told Senate estimates that the purchase of the General Atomics MQ-9B SkyGuardian (pictured) under project AIR 7003…
Frucor Suntory to build $400m factory Beverage manufacturer Frucor Suntory is to build a $400 million facility in Swanbank, Queensland with support from the Queensland government. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said: “The value of attracting this investment to Queensland will have significant benefits for our economic recovery and most importantly, it will create new jobs for…
Industrial process technology company Calix and Pilbara Minerals will establish a joint venture to potentially develop a demonstration plant to produce lithium phosphate salt to supply battery chemicals manufacturing. This follows positive results from their joint scoping study for a lithium salt production facility using Calix technology at Pilbara’s existing spodumene concentrate plant (pictured) at…
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has agreed to send Australian-made Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine, after a plea from the nation’s wartime President. Earlier Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a speech to federal parliament calling for Australia to send the country weapons systems including the Bushmaster. Speaking through an interpreter the khaki-clad president said some of…
