Chris Spyrou

Fed Square, I find it, because it is a great place to watch games and performances and things like that on that big screen there.

But I've seen this push online for people just to rock up with their streaming devices, their phones or laptops or whatever, and watch it together as a community, kind of like a silent disco thing.

and to rock up together and still watch the soccer, even though it won't be on the big screen, which I'm like, I endorse that message.

I love that message.

If you ask the government, these are the centrepiece of a future made in Australia.

They're sold to us as the reliable engine behind our economic sovereignty, our clean energy transition, and our national defence.

We've got a lot of them, and in the last few months alone, the Albanese government has signed a bunch of deals with the US, Canada, South Korea, the EU, and just this week, Japan, to get more of them off our shores and into the high-tech supply chains of our closest allies.

We're talking about critical minerals –

two words that are forever popping up in our headlines and in bilateral talks.

And in this deep dive, we're explaining what the hell they are, why they've sparked a global arms race for dirt, and how Australia has become one of the most popular kids in the room.

Susan Park is a professor of global governance at the University of Sydney, and she joins me now.

Susan, welcome to The Briefing.

To kick us off, can you explain what is a critical mineral?

What are some examples of these minerals that someone listening might know or recognise?

So the high-tech industries and the tech focus kind of seems to be the way that we talk about critical minerals and the way that they're included in bilateral discussions.

But in terms of workflows that we can visualize, I know that this is a podcast and it's an audio platform, but where would these minerals go into what sort of processes?

What are they creating?

What are they helping create?

You mentioned it's a lot of the reason that we're engaged in this space here is because it's about independence from global uncertainty.

What countries are most focused on getting ahead in this space?