Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 19 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a further overhaul of Australia's foreign investment framework under the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975. The package introduces a performance target of processing all low-risk applications within 30 days from 1 January 2027, expands the exemption-certificate regime for repeat low-risk investors, and eliminates approval requirements for certain low-risk transaction types. Countervailing measures tighten the framework: enhanced compliance and enforcement powers are added for avoidance and non-compliance, and screening requirements are explicitly increased for sensitive sectors including critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical technology, sensitive data, and defence-site-proximate assets.

On 3 December 2025, Export Finance Australia (EFA) disclosed a €120 million (~AU$196 million) loan commitment to Vulcan Energy Resources' Phase One Lionheart Project in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley, which will produce battery-quality lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) from geothermal brine while co-generating renewable heat and power. The loan is part of a syndicated, multi-country export-credit package alongside Germany's KfW Raw Materials Fund, the European Investment Bank, Export Development Canada, Denmark's EIFO, France's Bpifrance Assurance Export, and Italy's SACE, financing a project with total capital cost of ~€2.193 billion (~AU$3.9 billion). Phase One targets 24,000 tonnes per annum of LHM, enough for roughly 500,000 electric vehicles.

On 21 October 2025, the Queensland Government announced an AUD 30 million investment via the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) into Silica Resources Australia (SRA), backing the Mourilyan Silica Sands Project roughly 30km south of Innisfail in Far North Queensland, near the Port of Mourilyan. The funding supports plant, equipment and land acquisition for a project producing high-purity silica sand and silica flour used in glass (including display/TFT glass), solar-panel manufacturing, semiconductors, fibreglass composites and foundry applications. Production is targeted to reach 360,000+ tonnes per year within 12 months and 750,000+ tonnes within 5 years, with Japan, South Korea and the US identified as target export markets.

The Australian Border Force published Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No. TC 25/22 on 11 June 2025 under sections 269K, 269R and 269SE of the Customs Act 1901. The gazette lists new Tariff Concession Order (TCO) applications, eight TCOs made (moving corrosion inhibitors, compostable- film polymers, furnace cooling systems, aseptic food-processing machinery, reverse-osmosis filters, oilfield drilling parts and pallet-manufacturing robotics from the 5% general tariff rate to duty-free), one withdrawn application, and five local-manufacturer-initiated TCO revocations (reinstating the 5% general tariff rate on steel access-box, formwork and crown-seal products effective 22-24 January 2025). This is a routine, periodic administrative tariff-concession cycle rather than a discrete policy announcement.

Australia's Future Made in Australia package, announced in the 2024-25 Federal Budget on 14 May 2024, commits A$22.7bn over 10 years to position Australia as a preferred supplier in the global clean-energy and critical-minerals supply chain. The two flagship production tax incentives are: (1) the Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive (10% of eligible processing and refining costs for 31 critical minerals) and (2) the Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive (A$2 per kg of eligible renewable or low-emissions hydrogen, 2027-2040). A National Interest Framework administered by DISR determines which investments qualify. The framework act established a Future Made in Australia Coordinator and consolidated existing industrial-support vehicles (NAIF, EFA) under a single policy lens.

Act No. 9 of 2025, given Royal Assent on 14 February 2025, enacts the two production tax credits announced in the May 2024 Future Made in Australia package. Schedule 1 creates the Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive (HPTI): A$2/kg refundable tax offset for eligible renewable hydrogen produced with emissions intensity below 0.6 kgCO2e/kg H2. Schedule 2 creates the Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive (CMPTI): a refundable 10% tax offset on eligible processing and refining expenditure for the 31 minerals on Australia's Critical Minerals List. Both offsets apply to production occurring between 1 July 2027 and 30 June 2040, capped at 10 years per project, administered by the ATO via new Divisions 419 (CMPTI) and 421 (HPTI) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.

On 22 July 2021, Australia's Minister for Industry, Science and Technology announced an AUD 14.8 million Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant to Lynas Rare Earths for a new Rare Earth Carbonate Refining Circuit at its planned Kalgoorlie, Western Australia processing facility. The published GrantConnect award record (GA200152, approved 16 June 2021) lists the contracted grant value to recipient Lynas Kalgoorlie Pty Ltd at AUD 15,618,958.30 (GST inclusive). The process reduces chemical consumption and processing cost for refining ore from Lynas's Mt Weld deposit onshore in Australia, reducing reliance on Chinese midstream rare earth refining capacity.