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The most telling part of the release of the draft of our critical minerals list is that we have never as a country developed a comprehensive picture of our mineral needs and weaknesses.\xa0

The obvious question is: why not?\xa0

Part of a strong resilient economy is when you do things yourself. As a small country we can't do everything because we don\u2019t have domestic heft. We don\u2019t have a natural domestic market for a lot of large-scale operations.\xa0

So, in some cases where we do things at scale, we sell it offshore. We are quite good at some of it, and farming would be an example.\xa0

But it is why we don't make cars. When we did it didn\u2019t work financially so we are better off bringing them in.\xa0

But one of the great economic quandaries we have is a thing called a current account deficit. This shows we buy more stuff from the world than we sell to it.\xa0

That's not good.\xa0

We could mine more than we do. The fact that there are 35 minerals on the list, and by the way, the list doesn\u2019t include coal or gold, means we have a lot of minerals.\xa0

Are we taking full advantage? Obviously not.\xa0

Could we? Why not?\xa0

Because a lot of people get angsty about mining.\xa0

But as the miners will tell you, it's an increasingly sophisticated industry that cleans up after itself in a completely different way from the old days.\xa0

Here is the simple truth - the world needs minerals. We need minerals the same way we need power to turn the lights on and our current predicament around generation and supply is all the evidence you need to know we should be prioritising jobs and costs of living over the ideology of renewables and conservation land.\xa0

Those opposed are often opposed no matter what. They aren't for turning. They think a fern and snail beats a job and power and that\u2019s just the way they are.\xa0

They are allowed to be obsessed, but they shouldn't dictate economic travel.\xa0

Minerals are an income stream, a job stream, and a sensible, viable answer to a lot of economic problems.\xa0

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