In 1934, as Managing Director of BHP, Essington Lewis, travelled to Japan. Within days of leaving, Lewis wrote to his fellow BHP Director, Harold Darling, and said that "Japan may be described as a big gun-powder magazine and the people as fanatics and any day the two might connect and there will be an explosion." Lewis immediately drew up plans for BHP to start stockpiling raw materials and to manufacture munitions to improve Australia's defence. By 1936, Lewis, in cooperation with Holden and Orica, formed the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. By 1937, they were making planes at a factory in Melbourne. Eventually, the Australian designed Wirraway warplane would be manufactured there. Today we face similar threats to our nation's defence given the aggressive conduct of the Chinese Communist Party. Who, however, among our nation's large mining companies, or corporate sector more generally, will play a role like Essington's in helping to bolster our nation's defences? Read more

It is a great honour to be here as part of the third National Agriculture and Related Industries Day. Thank you to Tony Seabrook and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association for organising this conference today. I would also like to recognise Mrs Gina Rinehart, the founding patron of the National Agriculture and Related Industries Day, and Mr Kim Beazley, the Governor of Western Australia. Read more

Thank you. Thank you very much, Cynthia, and to David and to the amazing (Atlantic)   Council for hosting me here today. It’s been an excellent couple of days in DC, a few more days last week on your West Coast. Always great to be here and we are great friends, as Cynthia has said. I should say at the outset too I’ve been joined by a number of businesses from Australia as well, some of them are here today, in the critical mineral space. We have a very proud and strong business community in the resources industry and as Cynthia said, we’re happy to help, we’re happy to help and I think there’s an important task here to do. Read more

As the father of five children, I have become quite the expert on fairytales. Today I want to start by talking about one, the Big Bad Wolf. I am sure you all know him. The Big Bad Wolf is a scary figure who huffs and puffs. He does a great job of scaring the little pigs with his roar. However, when it comes to it he can’t blow the house down. Read more

…second time I've spoken at CEDA, and you do a great job at progressing and supporting policy debate across this country. It’s a great privilege to be back here again. Thank you Tasmin(*) for that kind introduction before, I thought it was the real introduction. It was still a good one. Thank you. Good to be up here. Read more

It’s great to be back for another South East Asia Australia Offshore and Onshore Conference. I thank Informa Australia and the Northern Territory Government for their continuing commitment to this long-running conference. Author Tess Lea said in her biography of Darwin that: Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild, but grow. Read more

It is a great honour to have been asked to speak at the first Resources media club event. And at this first event I thought I would concentrate on making the moral case for the development of Australia's resources. Last week I was in India which thankfully had much better traffic than Brisbane thanks to the absence of anyone supergluing themselves to a road - at least on my journeys. India remains, of course, a developing country. The average income of an Indian is 15 per cent that of an Australian, but Indian incomes are growing fast. It is the fastest growing major economy of the world. And it is one of the youngest countries in the world too; one million Indians turn 18 every month. Read more

Thank you so much and it is a great honour and privilege to be here this morning. I am limping to the stage this morning because I did my knee on the weekend playing cricket with the kids. I was bowling to my 14 year old and he was giving me a bit of stick in the backyard so, inspired Jofra Archer the night before, so I came in off the long run to show my 14 year old who was still boss. Read more

During the recent election, Bob Brown decided it was a good idea to travel into the heart of coal mining country and lecture everybody about how evil their livelihoods were. Read more

During the recent federal election, the Queensland Government announced a new condition that it would place on Adani. To receive approval, Adani would have to count every black throated finch on its mine site. Read more