MELISSA CLARKE, HOST:  Six months after receiving substantial taxpayer support, Nyrstar's Port Pirie smelter has begun selling antimony for the first time. Antimony is a critical mineral used to strengthen alloys.

Nyrstar received $135 million from the Federal South Australian and Tasmanian Governments to prop up both its Port Pirie and Hobart smelters, but their long‑term future remains uncertain.

The Federal industry minister joined me a short time ago.

Tim Ayres, thanks very much for joining me.

SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: It's good to be on the show, Mel.

HOST: The Port Pirie smelter's produced its first commercial shipment of antimony. Tell me, how much is being produced at the smelter now?

AYRES: Well, the amount that's been produced is commercial-in-confidence and the destination is on the east coast of Australia. This is a very significant milestone for Nyrstar and Port Pirie and for Australia. Moving from supports announced in the last half of last year from the Commonwealth Government and the South Australian Government to exports of antimony is very fast progress indeed and I'm very pleased with what's been achieved thus far.

HOST: So this antimony was produced in a pilot plant. This was meant to be looking at the potential to scale up in the future. What commitments have Nyrstar made to scale up that production from this current level?

AYRES: Well it's a modular manufacturing process. That is, you just add on capacity over time. A core part of the agreement between the Commonwealth and South Australia and Nyrstar is for them to invest in additional manufacturing capacity.

Nyrstar say that what they can produce is 5,000 tonnes of antimony a year. That doesn't sound like a lot, but that is 15 per cent of the global requirement every year for antimony, which is a critical mineral particularly in the defence sector.

HOST: Nyrstar have said that scaling up to that level though is subject to support. So this is going to require more government funding, isn't it?

 AYRES: This is the Albanese Government's Future Made in Australia plan delivering real production, real jobs, a thousand jobs here in Port Pirie secured by this additional investment, including $135 million from the Commonwealth Government and the South Australian Government.

This is a very significant progress. It's clear that there is a very significant global market, including with our partnership with the United States, markets in Europe and North Asia. This is real progress in our plan to rebuild Australian manufacturing.

HOST: We've heard from the industry that they think that there should be limits on exports, or at least a reserve of feedstock, so ores that are mined here that a certain amount should be kept in Australia and smelted here and not sent to cheaper smelters overseas. The CEO of Nyrstar has suggested that. Is the government willing to put export limits on some of our ores to ensure the viability of the Port Pirie smelter and other smelters in the long term?

AYRES: Well, led by Madeleine King, the resources minister, we'll continue to work through the details of the Critical Mineral Strategic Reserve. This approach –

HOST: So it's not off the table, that's something you'd consider?

AYRES: Absolutely. We'll keep working with proponents of facilities like these to deliver an Australian manufacturing capability of adding value to our minerals and to our critical minerals.

 This is a distorted market globally where there is market concentration. It doesn't operate like any other market and if Australia is to have a strategic position here that's in our national interests and in the interests of industrial growth, it does require the kind of interventions that you've seen from the Albanese Government.

 That's what a Future Made in Australia is about, strengthening Australia's position in a distorted global market. We're on the side of blue-collar jobs and Australian technology here, delivering Australian capacity, because that's in the long‑term interests of economic resilience for the whole country.

HOST: There's certainly been concern about the level of government investment required to keep a number of these critical industrial manufacturing processes going. How do you determine where the limit is on the level of government support needed to keep these going?

AYRES: Well, I think what you've seen from the Albanese Government so far is a commitment to defend critical Australian capability, whether it's the copper smelter in Mount Isa, this facility in Port Pirie in South Australia that I'm at today, or our steel sector in Whyalla.

This is a government that's firmly committed to Australian manufacturing. I've heard the critique from Angus Taylor and others on this but, you know, there's an enormous distance between Angus Taylor's record and what he says now.

Before he went into Parliament he was a cost cutting consultant who didn't see an Australian factory that he didn't want to downsize or an industrial facility that he didn't want to offshore. His approach in the Parliament hasn't changed very much. We're actually delivering while he's talking. 

HOST: I'm sure the Opposition would point to their support for sovereign domestic manufacturing, but look, I just want – 

AYRES: Well there's no delivery. There's no delivery there, Mel. There's just talk and words and negativity and partisanship. We are getting on with the job and committing this government to a rebuild and a reconstruction of Australian manufacturing.

 HOST:  Thank you very much, Tim Ayres. 

AYRES: Thanks Mel.

ENDS.