Turning Australia’s Assets into Regional Prosperity
How can an asset-rich country turn innovation into regional prosperity?
Australia’s natural wealth includes world class minerals, salt flats, sunlight, wind, and oceans that could power and feed the planet. Yet our economy is known for raw material export and farm gate foods. Australia is shipping over 90% of its critical minerals unprocessed (Geoscience Australia 2023), along with other raw materials, offshore and buying back the high-value products at a premium. However, this sort of innovation needs brave leaders. None of this is clearer than the extraordinary cost to purchase back Australian gas for the eastern states. I remember speaking to Alan Carpenter when he negotiated Western Australia’s 15% gas deal. It was clear it exhausted him. Carpenter’s gas reservation policy, though, was one of the most progressive resource decisions in modern WA history, arguably the key reason Western Australia isn’t suffering the same energy crisis as the rest of the country. It is leadership like this that has always been inspirational across the political spectrum. Australia already has everything needed to manufacture, refine, and package these products here. What is required is a strong policy to turn raw exports into regional wealth across industries, including utilising medical-grade saline made from Australia’s pure salt flats. Or Battery anodes and magnets produced near resource sites. What about seaweed bioplastics and marine biotech along our coasts, or green iron and low-carbon steel smelted using renewable energy in the Pilbara?
These industries and others don’t require discoveries; rather, smarter use of what’s already Australian.
Owning the Infrastructure That Matters
If we follow the Dutch model, we can generate public benefit by helping develop sovereign wealth through ownership, not just royalties, with a successful precedent set by the Netherlands, which kept majority public control of its ports, energy grids, and transport corridors—and now earns reliable, reinvested income while inviting private innovators to operate within them. Could Australia do the same through bold leadership to ensure ports, electricity, and water infrastructure are under public ownership? Could Australia, as a nation, establish Regional Innovation & Energy Zones where land, utilities, and approvals are streamlined, and ensure a percentage of revenue is channelled back into regional TAFE training, universities, research labs, and regional infrastructure upgrades?
Smarter Policy for Better Outcomes
Australia’s challenge is not a lack of opportunity but a deficit of long-term strategic resolve. Our wealth of natural assets is matched only by our capacity for ingenuity. The missing ingredient is leadership that dares to look beyond election cycles and design policy frameworks that keep value and opportunity onshore.
Policy levers are necessary to produce this sort of changing outcome. Including tax credits for regional value-add (not extraction), Payroll rebates tied to training completions, common-user utilities owned by regional asset funds, and a reinvestment covenant (15–30% of profits stay local). This sort of policy expands opportunities for onshore processing, packaging, and exports. More local jobs and skills retention. Lowering input costs leads to faster investment and a philosophy of continuous innovation and infrastructure renewal. Ultimately, this will lead to reduced dependence on global supply chains and to building strong regional communities to ensure sustainable growth and diversified opportunities across the nation.
Business Wanganhaa 