Right on money miners. End of the year is approaching
and the recaps are coming in great.
And tell you what, this one's a bloody We've pulled an absolute
legend out of the journalism industry.
This is awesome. It helped that on you very well,
Jenny. Jennifer Hewitt from the
Australian Financial Reviews, that illustrious career as a
columnist in multiple media organisations.
Bloody good friend of mine, like she's begging me to come on but
not squeezed her in and it was a chase.
She knows a shit wealth. Of knowledge.
I've got to admit I was very surprised at your friends after
meeting her like. Different, different walks of
life. Yeah.
Expectations were high and, you know, they were exceeded.
It's a cracking chat so. Yeah, so pretty like everything
on politics, energy, lot on energy in in Australia, China,
Trump. Resource policy, everything.
Yeah. Super, super fascinating chat.
Oh. I was, it was, I could, I reckon
if we kept going we could have bird her up like.
Alright. Because on our age, you know,
doesn't doesn't step not backwards in coming forward.
Got some good opinions. I loved it.
Definitely so close to Christmas, but 13 days not as
close to in Darba. But yeah, it's getting closer
every day. Getting closer every day.
Can't wait. We're pumped.
We're going to go there. Yeah, mate, I'm excited for
that. That's going to be a highlight
of next year. But yeah, in the interim, going
to look forward to listening to to Jenny on this party.
But one thing we didn't mention in this I can't believe I
completely forgot to even bring it up.
Do you remember I was telling you about that famous saying at
Daisy Milano? Get salt Bush to do it.
OK? I don't know.
Surprised Jenny didn't mention. It it's in the folklore there,
hey? I just read like there was the
shittest job even if the Danny was broken.
So oh, that's a salt Bush job. Salt Bush contracting that is
they're contractors. They will do anything not move
and rock from A to B with these beautiful haul trucks.
I'll show here only one aspect, contractors.
They will do anything on your mind site.
Go ahead. And run for a brick wall for.
You give yourself an early Christmas present and.
Just. Have this fleet that I'll bring
up right now go on across your countryside, moving rock from A
to B and making new money via salt Bush contracting.
Could not be easier. Details are in the show notes.
They're busy. Merry Christmas, When your kids
ask you dad, mum what do you want for Christmas, just reply
and say I want salt Bush contracting to do something for
me to do it for. Me go salt Bush.
Can't salt Bush. I would say one of my best
friends. Not just because she's.
From the IFR, my great friend Jenny Hewitt.
The historical University connection still talks to me.
Welcome to our show, Jenny. Pleasure to be.
Here, thank you. Sorry to interrupt your holiday.
Well, I know I wasn't expecting any less from you, of course.
Well. After all the years you've been
begging me to come on, I thought I'd finally.
Make it. I do appreciate it.
I do appreciate. It make it happen for you so.
Maddie, we, we're doing. A favour mate because like you
know you're, you're bringing her onto our platform but in the
past Jenny brought you onto the AFRS platform.
That was Bloody Merts, her daughter.
Who tricked me into doing an article about my CFD losses?
And I'm like, once it come out, I'm like, so am I getting paid
for this? She's like, no, no, it's a
great. I've done a lot of attention.
I'm like, you stitched me up there.
Yeah, yeah. Just demonstrated how you well,
you shouldn't do what you did. I think it was a good lesson.
Still doing it. I'm making a bit of money out of
them. Those days I don't, right?
So for those who don't know, the great Jennifer Hewitt is a
columnist for the IFR. God, you've been at the Oz.
You've let's just say you've been doing it.
For I've been doing it some time. 20 years or so and I'll
get in trouble when I'll talk about how long you've been
riding for, Jenny. But national affairs, you'd say?
Politics. Bit of bit of mining buddy.
Just a bit of every. Critical minerals, energy, the
interplay of all of that. International, yeah, everything
basically, right, Jack of all. Trades.
You're warming up all the conferences for me, the MC
roles, because once you finish up, Jenny, I'm going to take
over. Oh, don't, don't worry, I'll be
recommending you. Right.
Let's let's let's take it away. Should we start with energy
policy? Now, we we generally try and
steer clear of, of politics because it can be, you know,
yeah, you can alienate a good bit of the audience.
But I think this conversation is going to veer into it
specifically as it relates to commodities.
And I think one of the the interesting spots to start this
one, Jenny, is the nuclear policy.
You've written a bit about this over the past year and it's
become a real flashpoint between the Coalition and the Labor
Party. So from from your perspective,
you know, you, you live in Sydney and you're right from
about these topics from a bit of a different lens to what we see
here in Perth. But how much of A sort of hot
rod is this at the minute and what sort of role do you think
it's going to play over the next year in Australia?
Oh, I think the energy policy is going to be huge.
And the reason the energy policy is going to be huge is of
course, the fact that the, it's, so the energy market at the
moment is extremely dysfunctional, showing years and
years and years of, you know, crazy policies and, and refusal
to accept reality and things. So you've got the coalition's
nuclear policy, which I think they're going to announce a few
more details quite shortly before Christmas, possibly this
week, I think. But but as well as that, you've
got the renewables policy, which the federal government has and
that relies obviously on the great expansion of renewables.
But what they're kind of neglected for some time until
reality kind of came and hit them in the head was that the
you need firming power, whether it's gas, whether it's hydro,
whether it's batteries. And basically they neglected
gas. They just, Chris Bowen, the
energy minister, could hardly say the word for at least the
first year. And then at the same time you've
got state governments like NSW and Victoria, particularly
Victoria, where they just refused to acknowledge that they
would need gas development as well.
So anyway, the result is you've got coal fired power stations
which are, you know, obviously ageing, but also not only that
they're kind of uneconomic to run.
And so the investment to even keep them going hasn't been
there. And so like a couple of weeks
ago, we we're in this ludicrous position where the the NSW
Premier is begging, begging citizens to turn off their dish,
not turn on their dishwashers or air conditioning after 3
o'clock. Bloody hell.
Shocking for a for a country like Australia with the the
abundance that we have that we kind of get to this point.
Do do you see a big change in in gas?
Have we reached that tipping point now and do you expect the,
you know, incumbent government to really change their tone
coming into an election in the in the next half year now?
Well, they've changed their tone, but, but of course it's
not as though you can say, oh look, we've changed our tone on
gas and therefore it'll be all this gas that's suddenly
available. I mean, and, and, and, and the
other issue is that NSW and Victoria have, state governments
have just refused basically to extend or, or allow development
of gas for years and years and years.
And so therefore there is a kind of a great shortage.
So it has, you know, a lot of it comes from Queensland, maybe
from SA, but it's a very fragile rickety system.
And just because you've changed your tone doesn't mean that
there's going to be a sudden, you know, availability, easy
supply of gas. Where are they going to put the
plants over there? Are they proposing to put them
in anywhere? Well, gas forward points.
Well, they've got, you know, a couple that are, you know,
underway, but it won't be nearly enough.
And then there's this whole thing about the LNG import
terminals where you've. Got Bay in the middle Middle
East. Well, of course, you know,
there's arguments about where they, you know, the
environmental arguments about whether they should be allowed.
But I think the most really the advanced one, most advanced is,
is Andrew Forrest's at Port Kembla.
Surprise, surprise, surprise. But you know, even then they
still haven't got contracts for a lot of the gas, the squadron
energy that about long term contracts.
So like, I just think it's so uncertain and it all relies on
the fact that everything kind of keeps in balance.
And also that if there are kind of hot days or or a wind drought
or something that that industry winds back dramatically on its
use of of power, which doesn't seem to be a particularly
sensible way to run energy policy.
You know, in the twenty 20s. Let's face it not.
In the biggest city in the country.
No, but also the in terms of nuclear energy and of course,
even at best, at best what the coalition is talking about is
that you're beginning to beginning to get gas.
I'm sorry, nuclear energy possibly in the mid twenty 30s,
not really going getting going to the twenty 40s.
What our problem is the next decade, particularly.
It's also a a change in tone from privatisation of, of energy
in Australia right to a, a stance where you know, these 7
reactors would be built, built by the government, or at least
you know, the government having a significant role and.
Well, government owned, government owned, government
owned. It is a kind of slightly bizarre
thing that you've got the coalition saying, yes, yes,
we'll, we'll, we'll own all these, these guests, these,
sorry, these nuclear power stations.
We'll build and construct, build them and own them.
That is a very bizarre position. Will that happen with gas do you
think? Well, I think gas.
It doesn't have to. No, it doesn't have to.
With gas, not as much I think, but they've got to have the
right settings in place to allow, you know, gas to, to be
developed which. Means it's reserves, but the
hold up has been permitting these great reserves to actually
even come online. Yeah, well, I mean Vic.
There's a skill set. Yeah, and Victoria in particular
has been like the energy minister, they've been there for
a long time. Lily Dambrosio, despite the fact
it's such a gas dependent state. I mean, as far as she's
concerned, gas is anathema. And and of course, the hilarious
thing is they're also, you know, talk about, talk up their
environmental credentials. Well, because they've refused to
allow any gas development, what they use instead is brown coal
and, you know, the dirtiest fuel of all.
And they've got a couple of secret deals to subsidise the
continuation of brown coal because of this state they're
in. Yeah, the enormous Loy Yang got
got extended and another one in the in the Latrobe region there
as well. Just on, you know, continuing on
on coal there for a moment. I got over the past couple
years, we saw a massive tick up in in the royalties state based
in Queensland as well as NSW. Do you do you think that's now
at a level and do you think that could be more politicised as a
as a means for paying for this this transition again?
And you know, that was to the uproar of the mining sector in
particularly in in Queensland, where groups like BHB said we're
not putting a dollar more into this state.
Given what you've done, do you do you see that being further
used or have they used that as much as they could?
They will. The state government in
Queensland, well they've now got a new Coalition government
there, LNP government rather, and I can't imagine that they're
going to increase royalties anymore.
I mean basically it just makes it too difficult.
They won't increase them, but will they reduce them?
I'm not sure they will reduce them actually, I think in that
sense, unless they can get a, you know, big thing of
investment from someone like BHP, which I'm not sure that
will be the case because there's many other issues that would
affect the investment model. So I I would doubt that, but
because they're in such kind of dire financial straits or fiscal
straits with their budget. Their own state.
Yeah, situation first. Yeah, so.
Do you think they're going to be because uranium mornings, the
other one in Queensland as well that I think is there the
incumbent LMP, are they looking a bit more pro for mining, a
little bit less red tape maybe? Well, maybe a bit less, bit less
red tape. I mean, you, you, that's
certainly their, their inclination.
Of course, whether or not how that develops is another matter.
I mean, you've always got to have, you know, there's so many
kind of environmental rules these days.
So they'll they'll try that, but without being too radical
because I think that's going to be an issue.
But clearly that's that's where they'd like to go a bit more.
Yeah, yeah, well, we're just, we're just talking to our great
friends at iMac and talk about people that know everything
about native title and heritage and holy snap and duck shit
there is some. Oh, you beat your head against
the wall. Yeah, and I'm not even running
the companies. Well, it's, I mean, it's very,
it's very hard to to open a mine anywhere.
Yeah, but it's other than maybe somewhere in Africa, but it's
it's. Although it just gets taken off
you later on. Yes, Well, that's that, of
course, I mean, but that's a big issue.
I mean, but in Australia, it's become more and more difficult
to open a mind anywhere. And I don't think that's going
to change. And in terms of the delays and
everything, and of course, that's one of the things that is
always going to be an issue because people suddenly kind of
go, oh, wow, I think we really need this now.
And you're talking 10-15 years before you begin to see first
production at best. When, when the the Regis
decision come over about Mcfillimy's like obviously we're
in, we're in the mining state and like it's, it's, you know,
big news for us and like we talk about it everyday.
But like in Sydney and Melbourne, like what's the does
the, is the general public that aware of what goes on in mining
and and that sort of stuff specifically whether it's in NSW
or not, what's the vibe like over there?
Well, I think for anybody who's in the mining industry in those
states, obviously it's huge. But I think it's a very, very
different vibe in NSW and Victoria.
It's, you know, it's a bit as, you know, like like little kids
when, when you get a quarter milk and they think the milk
comes from the, the supermarket. You know, I think a lot of
people in New South Wales and Victoria actually forget where
things come from. So I think the Mcfillimmie's
decision was, was a very big issue for anybody who's
interested in mining and understands what's going on.
And it also for regional areas. But in terms of the city and,
you know, most people in Sydney and Melbourne, I don't think
they would have heard of it or paid much attention.
What are the extent they did they think, Oh, well, that's you
know, that's a good idea. Yeah, what are they interested
in? Mostly over there Rugby league
poker machines. I mean, it's, it's the, it's the
West world in a, in a microcosm, right?
Yeah. What's the US opened a few mines
in the past few decades and Europe's barely, barely got an
operation. And, you know, there's protests
in the street when you open a, when you want to open one
lithium mine or something like that.
So it's kind of reflective of of where we are as a society.
Yeah, that's like this kind of gap between what's needed, yeah
and what people want. And, and I mean, I did use to
think it was kind of quite humorous was when for a, you
know, a couple of years ago, everybody was talking about
green metals and, and people didn't really understand what it
meant, but they thought, oh, that's got to do with the energy
transition. So therefore, that's fine.
That's a kind of a different form of mining, as if they'd
never seen a lithium mine or something.
It was very weird. Bloody dash, that'll find you
some of that green metal. If you want to find green metal.
If you want to make green metal. The GF is champions.
Oh well, won't they mate? But.
Actually mate GF is look there is green on the page when you
get the the GF is data. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There you go. And you gotta, I'm pretty sure
Dash sort of the only company that are doing geofis in the
country at the moment. Yeah, they put it on the
decline. Yeah, Mike.
And Speaking of Christmas presents, like they've already
got 8 gravity crews working in WA at the moment.
They've got an office in the heart of WA, Kalgoorlie.
Impressive mate. They get mate, if you ring them
up and say heard about your money and mine, they are going
to give free mobilisation for any new WA contracts for
December, January free that is ho ho ho merry Daish SAT you
don't. Give yourself a Christmas
present. They're called Daish SAT.
Bye Did. I say they've got 8 gravity
crews working in WA. And might they're still giving
away ship for free? That is, that is impressive.
That's a Daish. You are the opposite of the
Grinch you are saying. Decades of experience as well.
He's just Santa he's he's and not and what not one of those
drunk Sanders that are in the shopping centres like the legit
centre. But mate, David, but as we said,
gravity magnetics, and that's from ground drone or helicopter
radio metrics, passive seismic, soul sampling, mate, anything
before you wanna drill a fucking hole, pretty much, Dash, that
will tell you where to put the hole.
Free mobilisation. What are you waiting for?
Oh. What are you waiting for right
now? Let's get back into it.
Sorry to interrupt. Yeah.
What did you you heard any feedback of the what was it?
The Nuclear nuclear Energy review that just happened in
Canberra last week. Well, of course the the
coalition is saying that's a completely biassed, you know,
political thing because they talked about how much it was
going to cost. And they said, you know,
renewable energy with firming was still much cheaper than
nuclear power. And that may well be the case,
but I probably is the case. But I don't think that the
government's argument that renewables and is going to be,
you know, it's obviously cheaper.
Remember, I don't know, you probably don't remember.
But in the last election campaign, they were saying,
well, of course it's cheaper because, you know, solar, the
sun's free, wind's free, you'll, your power bills are going to go
down. And nobody was actually
acknowledging that with, with the cost of all the transmission
and, and, and converting solar and wind power is actually
incredibly expensive. And, and so no matter what
happens, I don't know how much, but we're all going to be facing
much higher power bills. And your only hope is really
that, you know, there'll be technological advances that'll
make batteries kind of somewhat cheaper, certainly hydropower, I
think in Australia, like all the dreams of that if you just look
at Snowy, yeah, I mean, it's, it's just a disaster really in
terms of the cost of that. So I I feel.
That that's the fear of the government.
No, not working, won't be working till for years.
Yeah, right. And it's, I think it's, you
know, the original cost and Malcolm Turnbull put it up was
like $2 billion. I mean, it's now it's.
At 12 is. 12 and counting, yeah, and nowhere near finished.
And that doesn't include the transmission lines, yeah.
Yeah, it was a similar issue to to wood Smith in some ways to
rotating boar head to stop working.
The geotech wasn't done properly.
And yeah, all of a sudden, you know, you can't, you know, like
he can't sink this shaft any any further, you know?
Yeah. We're Speaking of sort of CapEx
blowouts and and government money.
We should talk about any other. So this you know popped up in
the headlines just earlier this week.
Government gone from 1.2 and a bit to to 1.6 and we'll see if
that's a kind of pit stop on the way.
What, what do you kind of make of this and the the broader sort
of push for these, you know, very specific rare earth
investments by the government? Well, of course, this was the,
the 1st $1.2 billion came up at the dying days of the Morrison
government. Yeah.
And so they decided to kind of go ahead with that.
And, but kind of in a sense that was all the kind of gung, gung
ho. This is our future.
You know, we've, we've said, oh, we're no longer going to be
reliant on, on minerals like like iron ore or coal.
Well, there's a whole new future here in, in, in critical
minerals and rare earths and things.
And I don't think people quite understood how complicated this
was. And in a sense, incredibly even
more expensive, but without the scale.
And so I so, but, but they had them kind of over a barrel, I
think with the government, because they could say, well,
you know, we've got the $1.2 billion.
We can't actually go any further unless you give us more money.
And and you've seen that in a few instances.
I'm not sure, you know, really how effective that will be.
Clearly there's a whole lot of talk about supply chains and
diversifying away from China and, and this is a, you know, an
option for Australia and it's going to be all these kind of
great possibilities, but I'm not sure about the economics of any
of it really at the moment. And our unfortunate success in
downstream processing of light, it's probably not the best as a
country. Lack of success?
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right.
I mean because it's. I wish it was.
Yeah, but like, but again, it, it was that thing.
It's a bit like the whole dream of, you know, renewables, but
even more complicated because it, it sounds like a great
vision. Oh, we've got all this natural,
natural resources here. We'll just kind of make use of
them and it makes more sense. And, and they're whether it was
Roger Cook or Anthony Albanese, they're they're talking about,
oh, we're gonna be this great, you know, battery manufacturer.
And and I don't think anybody had any understanding of how
complicated it was, how what a protracted process it was, what
skills you were needed and also how expensive it would be.
We want to get paid too much in Australia.
Well, we can't. You can't compete.
Well, in that sense, it's very, very hard to compete.
And the only reason that you could compete if people were
willing to pay more and have that kind of premium.
And, and maybe in some cases over time that will happen, but
at the moment there's not much evidence of that.
Isn't that like to the extent Australia's been a tremendously
rich country over the last couple of decades, been driven
by like selling our raw materials to China and now what
we want to, we think we can, we can produce stuff to have like
independent supply chains from China.
Like it's an absurd proposition that to think that we don't need
each other. Yeah, well, that is a kind of an
absurd proposition, but it is also, you know, real that
China's China's behaviour has become much more aggressive and
much more threatening to stability, regional stability
over over that same period. And so it's not surprising that
people are going well. Is this, is this such a great
idea? I mean, the fact is that China's
ability to dominate processing everybody else kind of missed
the boat a bit, including the US, obviously.
So I'm look, it's a really, it's a devilish problem, but I do
think you would have to be concerned about the fact that
China's, China's ability to turn this on and off less to do with
Australia and more to do with its own kind of geopolitical
interests and the US and the tension there.
And I think you've already seen it because the US has now under
the Biden administration in, you know, heavens knows what's going
to happen under the Trump administration.
But under the Biden administration, they've just put
some more restrictions ON Semiconductor, you know, aspects
of the semiconductor industry and who can do business with
Chinese companies. And China has already retaliated
with some of the greater bans and restrictions on supplying
some of the rare earths like gallium.
So it's going to be, you know, it's a very tense period, but
the so, but the so you understand the appeal, the
intellectual appeal of having alternative supply chains, but
the business and commercial aspects as well as the kind of
physical aspects still to be worked out, putting it mildly.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm concerned that, you know, we'll be sitting
here 8 years from now and any other will be $5 billion of
taxpayer money lit up with zero return.
Yeah. And we all saw the writing on
the world. Well, you know, that's the
concern I have. Yeah, no, I, well, I think
that's, that's a very real concern.
But I guess you then you have to say, all right, well, what's
your return if you don't put money in and you just say, well,
we just won't do any of this because there's no, there's no
other way. It's going to be commercial.
There's two, I think it's two alternatives like 1 is, yeah,
focus on massive energy abundance in a lot of ways, like
how we're going to have competitive downstream in any
way, shape or form with the with the status quo.
The other one is, yeah, is is, you know, special economic zone
or integrated like industrial parks that have tax concessions
which encourage private investment and then allow the
private sector to come up with its own investment thesis model,
its own returns. And instead of the kind of
government saying you're, you're, you're the person that
can do this best. But we'll keep keep tipping up
as you have blowouts, which will definitely happen.
Yes, well, I think that's right. I mean, Australia, but WA in
particular has, is promoting, you know, its ability to set up
industrial parks and things like that.
And you've obviously got banana and then they've got a new, new
ones planned, I think in the Pilbara.
And, but I mean, I was just driving past Camerton Industrial
Park near Bunbury and you know, that is actually, that was
decades ago that was set up. You still don't have proper
environmental approvals. You don't have land approvals,
you don't, you don't have proper power, you don't have
connections. Like it's a joke.
And I think when Albemarle set up there for its lithium
processing plant, that was a kind of pretty big deal and they
were going to expand it. Well, of course, there were two
things that happened. 1 is that the lithium prices, you know,
the collapse and the lithium price.
So clearly that's not as nearly as attractive as it was.
But the other, the other problem has been it's just so difficult
to do business down there. It's not as though if you've got
choices about where to invest, you'd, you'd choose somewhere
that they weren't even at the beginning.
But if you compare that to some of the industrial parks and
somewhere like Indonesia for Nickel where you know, it's all
ready to go. And they do have that kind of
shared infrastructure, shared skills, shared worksite,
everything's there ready to go. And, and yet we don't manage
that at all. And I think that's one of the
issues with where the government could have and should have and
do something more than it than it has, but it doesn't want to
spend the capital investment on something that's going to be
years before there is actually a good return.
With talking about the Pilbara, it fascinates me that like the
quantity of work that happens up there and most of it is run on
diesel, like the infrastructure up there.
I just, like I think someone said Rio Tinto choose through 9
billion litres of diesel a year. Like yeah, that's for the
Pilbara, the iron ore side of things and everything is
freaking huge, what they operate.
Is there any talk of putting energy infrastructure in at the?
Oh, no, there's a lot, there's a lot there.
You know, a lot of them are like Rio and and FM GB H they're
they're building solar farms, They're trying and they've got
all these commitments to try and move reduce the the level of
diesel. They're still, I mean, the
trucks are obviously a big issue.
I mean, because, you know, it's just not the technology's not
there for for a lot of the trucks to be electric and
things. But, but in terms of the power
they're using, there's a, you know, there's huge advances
being made on that in terms of solar and wind power putting in
their own energy infrastructure. What about a gas pipeline from
some? Yeah.
They kind of have their own. Base base load like gas or
anything to go up there? I'm not sure I'm not.
I think they're more concentrating.
There's obviously going to be some gas, but I think they're
more concentrating on on wind and solar with kind of gas or
with with backup diesel, whatever it's it's but I think
you would be astonished because they're so big and so massive.
They can put in those giant projects, whether or not they're
going to do them themselves or whether they're going to get a
third party to do them. That's all become more
complicated. And of course, the also the
other issue is the kind of whole native title thing.
And that becomes if you're taking over much more land,
that's also complicated as well. But these things take years
basically to develop. Is there and is there much argy
bargy between them? Because I assume that between
the like the big three and probably Chuck Hancock in there
as well. It's like right, who's building
it, who's paying for it, who's using it like because they all
want to like you. You see the bloody jewel rail
lines up there everywhere because the how that whole the
politics with those big on all companies works.
I assume that'd be the same with the energy.
Well, actually I, I think that they've, they've learned a bit
of a lesson on that because I remember, I remember when there
was Rio and BHP and they had their rail lines.
And of course Forrest wanted to access those rail lines and he
took them to court and it went for years.
And they were saying, well, you know, it just dragged out.
But in the end, he built his own and common rather than kind of
fighting for common user things. I, I do think that there's a bit
more shared infrastructure on and, and, and they kind of all
realise now that they've, they kind of sinkhole swim together.
And you've got some quite a bit of cooperation, not necessarily
with Fortescue, not necessarily with Hancock, but like Rio and
BHP are doing kind of quite a bit of stuff on green iron and
how to work together, you know, pilot projects and things like
that. So I don't think you're going to
find that because it's too hard. And also it's just the the lack
of competition, Australia's lack of competitiveness rather makes
that just kind of complicates things further if if there's not
a degree of least of cooperation.
Is how is old Twiggy going going catching up with him?
No, I haven't caught up with him on this trip.
Has he? Has he eaten his humble pie on
the hydrogen yet? I don't think you'd ever see a
meeting. Humble pie.
No, I don't think so. I think it's they've just all
recognised it's going to take a lot longer than they thought and
that of course that's a very optimistic.
Requires a much higher energy price.
And so he's the one beneficiary of a very high energy price.
Yes. And maybe he, you know, maybe
he's import terminal, you know, all that sort of stuff.
It's all kind of like, yeah, I think it's, I think there's not
enough fingers pointing at him. Fair, fair.
You know, the fact that that he's a massive beneficiary of
the high energy price by by the by.
All. Yeah, Well, of course Squadron
Energy will say, you know he's private owned.
Squadron Energy will say actually that the LNG prices are
going to be coming down and we'll be at least competitive
with domestic prices and they'll be going up.
I have no idea as having looked at energy over a period of a
decade or so now, the thing that I have become aware of is no, I
don't care what expert predictions you've got, they all
seem to be wrong. And so you know, Yep, you can
make some kind of educated guesses and but that's about as,
as far as you get. Now, whether or not the LNG
terminal import is going to be a viable proposition, I think it
probably will be only because we've so screwed up our own
domestic gas supply. I've, I've heard word on the
decline that Fortescue or whether it's a subsidiary or
whatever, you know, I'm making some sort of enquiries into
nuclear like because it makes the most sense for him to save
the world via nuclear as well as I just never talked about it.
Has there been any, you know, rumours about that going around
of their stance towards it or is it still firm?
No. I I'm afraid I have not had any
conversations about that, so I I'd.
Be breaking news. Yeah, well, you know, you can
always have lots of abrupt reversals in any sorts of energy
policy. I mean, I've got nothing against
nuclear energy. Whether or not it's ever going
to be viable in Australia, I don't know.
But clearly it answers some of the questions, which is what of
course the Coalition's going on about.
It answers some of the questions about being both, you know, low
emissions or zero emissions virtually and and more more
reliable. But you know, we we're talking
10/15/20 years out and I am not sure that we really we will have
any idea of what the energy market looks like at that stage.
So it's, and so I guess getting back to that point is like this
next decade, you see is extremely critical.
What is it's critical, but it's kind of like going in the dark a
bit. And Australia has managed, I do
think to stumble, you know, kind of X.
It's been very lucky. It's been it's, it's built, it's
much of its wealth not only on, you know, things like iron ore
and coal, but also in just having low cost energy.
And those days are kind of ending.
And I don't think anybody's really kind of quite registered
that. So the idea, for example, that
you've got the government giving subsidies to every household to
for their power bills and the coalition not saying whether or
not they'd continue that it just that's just indicative of a
really, really broken system. And it's very, very different to
say like despite all the problems with the US and mining
at at at least over there you've got low energy costs do.
Do you think Canberra looks enough at Germany, say on the
one hand and and the US on the other hand and and lands from
no, you know, other countries, No.
Answer no. It's disappointing because it's
way cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes than you like
them yourself. Yeah, look, how real is it, the
energy, I guess crisis and sensitivity over there because,
and I've listened to tune into two GB every now and then just
to make me feel back in NSW and you just hear about how the
light the, I think it's a, it was one of the Hunter Valley
plants is on 99% load and like it's literally Tay though as the
AGL plants are teetering on the edge of tripping the whole
system out. Like is it that runs a fine line
all the time? Yeah, it runs.
Yeah, it runs a. Fine line in summer I show all.
The time, yeah. And also because there was no
appreciation. I didn't mean I think there was
in the industry, but I don't think there was any political
appreciation of how difficult and protracted it would be to
get like all the transmission lines in place.
The the days when you can kind of just put all that, just
bulldoze through people's property and that was OK.
It was fine and nobody could say anything that that's that's
gone. And now getting that kind of
community support is very, very difficult.
And I think we've really not, I mean, I don't think any, the
governments have not under appreciated that.
And so therefore, quite apart from the normal problems with
construction costs and, and lack of labour and all of those, you
know, which have only become worse, there's just been zero
understanding, which is only just kind of that you actually
either have to convince people, pay people, whatever to, to
allow access. And, and they, and the
governments of course, haven't really wanted to go to
compulsory acquisition because that would make them even more
unpopular. So that's a, that's a big issue.
And then, of course, you've got, you know, other hopes like
offshore wind power, which I cannot, I just cannot understand
that there would ever be a viable business case for that.
Sounds cool. Sounds looks cool, yeah.
Just on hydrogen once more, I think it came out in the in the
budget maybe six months ago or so that there were further
incentives, minerals processing as as well as hydrogen.
What was the sort of perspective you had on, on hydrogen?
I think we were sort of scratching our head and thought
that hype behind that had, you know, been put firmly behind us
in the 2020-2021 kind of period. So I mean, I was a bit surprised
to see that I can't remember the figure off the top of my head.
Maybe up to seven sort of billion dollars in potential,
you know, tax credits and, and the like for hydrogen projects.
Yeah, there were a few billion. I can't remember exactly how
many billion, but yeah, that's right.
Well, I do think they're trying to, you know, place bets all
over the place. And so hydrogen seemed like a
good idea. And in the sense that it does
take people a while to catch up with reality, the the hype kind
of carried at foot because it then takes a while to translate
into political reality. So.
Five years later. Yeah, Yeah.
A few years later, they kind of come up with this in the budget
and this will all be a kind of a great thing.
And and I'm trying to remember which budget it was, but maybe
it was 2, two years ago, 18 months ago.
Anyway, I don't need to, but it takes for ages, you know, to
then come and again come into place, cooled on it, then the
investment market cools on it. Plus up at the time the actual
becomes actual policy. Like, you've got that with the
production tax credits, you know, for a lot of the critical
minerals stuff, you know, when that was kind of being pushed,
that was that seemed like a great idea.
Well, now nothing's really much going on in that area, and maybe
it will again, but they're not even going to come into effect
till 2027. So.
Yeah. You spend, you spend like a lot
of, a lot of time in the roles that you've had, you know,
speaking with like very important significant decision
makers, very like rich people, politicians, blah, blah, the
whole works, right? Yeah, like, yeah, like.
What are the major frustrations you have kind of like glancing
across that scene, like if? You're the major frustrations
are I have or the major frustrations you have.
I have, yes. And you impart.
On the road What you mean because I'm a because I'm a rich
person or because I'm a what just.
No, just interacting with. Well, I, I mean, basically, I, I
can see how many frustrations there are in business.
And somebody said to me, we'll remain unnamed, but, you know,
fairly significant minor, but we have a lot of talk about, you
know, the care economy and, you know, that's all wonderful and
how we need to spend more on that.
There's absolutely nothing ever said about productivity or how
to increase the wealth so that we can pay for all these
services. And look, that's beginning to
change a little bit. I mean, but, but it's very slow.
So I guess that is my frustration.
And I, I agree that in the end, it's the private sector that's
got to drive things with, with the kind of right, government
framework and policies. But it's really only been like
almost in the last little tiny while that even the treasurer,
Jim Chalmers has kind of basically said, oh, it's yeah,
we've really got to do something about the private sector and
encourage, you know, private sector investment.
And we acknowledge that really it's the private sector that
will drive the economy because that has not been happening in
fact. And so all the jobs that not all
the jobs that almost all the jobs that have been created are
in government paid jobs, that's where that's where all the focus
has been to kind of, I suppose, compensate for people feeling
that they were not getting ahead so they need more help with, you
know, there was well, at the end of the Morrison government,
people were, you know, furious that there, there were problems
with aged care, there were problems with childcare,
problems with hospitals, things like that.
Somebody goes, we just need to put more money into it.
But there's been very little focus on how you get to
Australia to be a more productive economy, to pay for
all of that or any of it. And and frankly, and the other
thing is, of course, the industrial relations laws that
the government has put in were really designed because Tony
Burke wanted basically wanted the support of the unions.
But there's been no big picture reform attempts and certainly no
real attempts on tax reform. It's all considered too hard.
So everything's very incremental.
What what do you think some of the ways would be for the
economy to be more productive to answer answer your frustration.
Well, I just. Look straight down the camera
and tell them Jenny. Well, I, I do think the fact
that Australia's tax system is just completely hopeless and as
far too reliant, I think on income tax and taxing, you know,
all of those, you know, middle income workers and, and at the
same time you've got this ageing population.
I think that is a huge problem and nobody wants to take that
on. I do think that's a big issue.
Similarly with industrial relations.
I do, I think all of that has been a problem and what we've
done is relied on immigration to kind of paper a lot of that
over. And I do think that there's
going to be a reckoning. I mean Australia, I mean it's
cost, it's a fantastic country to live in.
Look at WA, you know, it's always fantastic to be here.
Everything looks really healthy. What could go wrong?
Well, what could go wrong is we're just kind of sliding,
sliding, sliding and I don't think we encourage that.
But don't even get me started on the education system.
So. We can take.
This part to patch as well, like the last call it like five
years. The the the on oil prices being
called like one one 20s like on average.
And and yet the Aussie dollar stayed low and like you're
you're you're 70 cents 65. So that's a that is a that that
is an absurd. Normally they track together
right? Like high commodities your your
Aussie dollar goes higher. Coal price too.
Yeah. So, yeah.
So the the the benefit from the royalties of that to the to the
to the government is like what like we are we used to that as
the new sweet spot like that. That's been a purple patch.
That's an anomaly that shouldn't That is not the norm.
Yes, but I think everybody does think that's the norm.
And of course, let's not forget that everybody outside WA, you
know, then gets very resentful about the GST, you know, the
money that's going back to Australia, to WA, which, yeah, I
know that you know, nobody, nobody in West outside WA thinks
that I of course being a good WA, you know, defend, defend
this arrangement. But most other people think
that's a very, very bad idea. But I yeah, so I think our kind
of whole tax system is just really skewed and and that has
not, that has not helped. And at the same time, as I said,
where most of the jobs have been been in the government sector
and the productivity in the public sector has just hasn't
moved or has gone backwards for decades.
Well. There's been, I know.
It's hard to measure that, but it's really gotten kind of much,
much worse. Yeah, and there's been a sort
of, we'll show at least more chatter about unionisation in,
in the Pilbara, kind of tying in with the industrial relations,
industrial reforms policies. Do you, do you think that goes
anywhere or do you think the, you know the, I guess the
realisation that it's not bad, we earn an awesome salary, those
sorts of things carry, carry Australians sort of through.
Well, I think that's a big risk. I do think that's a risk and
clearly it's going to be a lot easier to, if not, not organise
a workforce, get access and then have complaints because you
really only get, only need one or two people and you'll be able
to, you know, enter the site and you know, and demand to be part
of the bargaining arrangements and things like that.
So I, I think that's a clear risk, but I, I also think the
companies are very aware of that as well and they're trying to
kind of board that off as much as possible.
So if to the extent that it is a problem, it'll take, this is the
beginning, but it it'll take some while before you see that
particularly evident I think in the Pilbara.
But for example in the coal industry in NSW and to
Queensland, it's much bigger. And the the tunnels and
everything in Sydney, like Snowy, Audro, they're all
unionised. It's just I've never worked with
one so I can't. I'll probably give a bit of a
blase view, but it's just gives people the reason not to work.
Light unions. Well, BHB, you have the
experience in in Chile as well, where operations stop, Yeah,
they stop. And I mean, they've got.
They've always had coal and they've got the coal experience
in, yeah. They've got 130 years of
fighting unions, so yes. But also the, the construction
industry in particular, I think has been a particularly bad
example of what can go wrong. And, and, and in a sense,
whether you've had all the, you know, the LNG plants in WA or
they've, they've been able to get away with it because the
conditions have been OK most of the time.
You know, but it's really impossible I think to these days
to, to have a hope of being competitive when you've got that
type of level of activity. It's the like the tunnels and
stuff in Sydney like snowy hydro and Snowy hydro.
Is it like, does it, does it boost the economy a bit like
those infrastructure projects in Sydney or is it Sydney that big?
It's not even that noticeable. Oh no, no, it's the.
Closest thing to no. Of course, no, no.
Well, of course it, it means that there's a lot of money kind
of pumping through the economy. There is, that is, you know,
true. So it does boost it in that way,
but it but it also means that there's a lot of debt building
up as well and money's not going to other parts of the economy.
Yeah, education system, the University of Wollongong
shutting down the mining school. Did you say that?
No, I did not say. That, that was the, the big
uproar. So now there's, I don't know if
you're referring to more child or tertiary or both, but there's
now only going to be, unless it gets reversed, 1 mining school
on the eastern seaboard of Australia because you could have
been shut down. I don't think University of
Sydney got one, just the one in UNSW.
You got the Ballarat one in Melbourne, which is more
diplomas, but yeah. But I think that is like that is
an issue that, well, mining has a problem in like an image
problem, you know, around the world, I guess.
But in a, in a country like Australia, I think it's
particularly pronounced. And to your point, I think in WA
it's a little different because people do understand.
I remember Colin Barnett always used to say to me, every
family's always got some connection to the resources
industry in WA. And you'll notice that when you
go to the airport or when I moved over, I'm like far out,
there's some hive is floating around.
Yeah, the whole. Airport is covered in and it was
just and coming from eastern states it's like you'd never
seen it. Yes.
And so I think that there's this kind of disconnect between
people's understanding of where Australia's wealth comes from.
And I mean, obviously there's agriculture as well.
And but, and also, but this idea that it's somehow just magically
produced, you know, in financial circles in, in Sydney and
Melbourne, which of course it's not.
You had this cracking line I'll have to read out in in one of
your articles a couple months ago.
W Australians are hardwired to believe their massive
contribution to the national economy is not properly
recognised in the eastern states.
I love that. And yeah, I mean, I think it, I
think it really hits home. It's true.
I don't think I'll find any W Australian or disagree.
Bring on the secession. What about big Trumpy?
Big Trump's back in power? You've written plenty and you
write plenty about himself and Kamala in the load up.
Just go over the whole thing. He's he's not wasting.
Australia get stuck in the in the crosshairs I think is an
interesting perspective on on the trade wars with with.
Yeah, well, I think it's very possible it it could.
But when I said that you couldn't predict what was going
to happen in the energy market, well, it's even harder to
predict it was going to happen in the in the Trump presidency.
And I'm, I'm really struck by the fact that, you know, markets
in general are pretty sanguine about the, what's going to
happen if the, you know, what the, the impact of a trade war
between, you know, China and, and the US and, you know, much
higher tariffs and things like that.
I don't know, I don't think anybody really knows how that's
going to play out. I mean, it was fairly shocking,
I think to both Canada and Mexico when Trump, when Trump,
you know, exactly when Trump, you know, before he even takes
power on June 20 announced, I think it was 25% tariffs on
everything coming from Canada and Mexico.
Now you don't know whether he's actually going to proceed with
that or whether he's going to say, yeah, well, if you stop,
you know, everybody coming at the border or if you stop, you
know, import of drugs or something, then we'll we'll
talk. You know, it won't, it won't
happen. It's like it's really difficult
to say. But he's got, of course, a
Republican Congress now, which, you know, in both the Senate and
the House. So that really helps.
But with tariffs, he didn't really need that anyway because
you can do a lot just through executive orders and making
rules. So but what you do know about
Trump is that, you know, he's promised everybody that prices
will go down. If they start going up, he's
he's going to lose a lot of skin quite quickly.
So I think that that's why I assume many people in the market
think, Oh, well, it won't be as bad as is predicted.
Because even though he's promising radical change and
much more manufacturing in the US, he's not going to wait for
prices to really become, you know, inflation in that sense to
really become a big problem for him politically.
Now, how, how you can calibrate all that and manage it, you
know, I don't. I've no idea.
And I'm not sure he does either. He must be, he must really want
to cause what do you say? He wants to get the income tax
rate down to 1315% or 13. Well, I think he what?
I think he. Wants they have federal and
state, yeah. But he's and he's but he also
wants the the business. He'll certainly cut corporate
tax rate quite, quite a lot. I think that was the, it was the
corporate one. Yeah, yeah, 'cause he might if,
if he's going to put tariffs on everything but get prices down,
it has to come from tax, you would think.
Yeah. And of course, nobody in the US,
whether that used to be the Republicans, you know, really
cared about debt, Well, nobody does, and the Republicans will
have. To pay a bit off of your
reckons. Yeah.
So that's a kind. Of line can fix that one, yeah.
Yeah, well, it's all about Oh no, well, the economic growth
will just, you know, magically take care of all this, so it
won't be an issue. I.
Run away from it. Yeah.
Well, and so is the what's the
view out there with I was just sort of JD was saying about the
effect on Australia if, if the tariffs are being imposed on
China, is it going to maybe promote less growth in China,
which is going to pretty much impact all everything we export
to China and the amount of it? Well, it it could.
I mean, what's interesting is that the Chinese government just
in the last week or so has said much more about, you know,
they're prepared to have a much looser monetary policy and much
kind of greater physical stimulus.
But they've hold held out entirely on saying what that is.
And I think they're just waiting to see how the Trump
administration policies affect them, what they're.
But clearly, I mean, the Chinese economy's obviously been a lot
weaker and the consumer demand has been weaker than the
government might have hoped. They've been managing to get
away with that, but they won't want it to get much worse.
And so therefore I think they will unleash a stimulus.
So in that sense, yes, Australia would be caught.
And clearly, you know, as a major expert, if there's a trade
war going on where which has a problem for the global economy,
then that is difficult for Australia and naturally be kind
of caught by that. But, but I think it's also true
that China is well prepared to to act to kind of try and
stimulate its economy. But whether or not that's more
through kind of consumer demand than anything, I don't, I don't
know. But it's just going to be a very
tense year or two, I'd say. And military's the interesting
one, I've seen that, or is it the Federal Government's putting
$600 million in to get a rugby league team in PNG, which is
pretty much a lot of money. They're playing to get a big
defence base over there. Yes.
Effectively, yes, which is all related to, you know, China,
Taiwan. Well, that's right.
But of course, The thing is it's very hard to out compete China
with money. So therefore you have to kind of
try and compete it out compete in other ways and, you know,
including, you know, cultural ties and, you know, job offers
and things like that. And there's no doubt that the
Australian government was left completely unaware and napping
when the Solomon Islands signed the, I think, treaty or a pact
or a security pact with China. So they're determined and of
course the Americans are particularly determined that
that not happen again. So I think you'll see kind of
quite a lot of bit more of this emphasis.
But there's no doubt that China's, you know, behaving kind
of much more, it's much more active, is becoming more
aggressive. I mean, I, I saw somebody from
the Philippines the other days in charge of the Navy in the
Philippines. And, and when you can see what
China's doing there against the Philippines, the Philippines
have been cautious in how they respond.
Again, they're waiting to see what the Trump administration
policies are going to be. Is it Australia going to be good
buddies with Trump? Do you think if they're if we're
going to D China, America's going to fill the void for
Australia or not? Well, I can't.
I mean in a sense. It's a long why?
Why? Well, no, I I don't think
there's any doubt that there's there'll be a very strong
alliance remaining with the USI don't think that's going to
change. I do think some of Trump's
policies, well, as you know, there's already a large section
of the Labour left that doesn't like orcas and the submarines
and thinks that all of that's a bad idea quite apart from the
practical problems. But so I think that will
strengthen that. But I don't think there's any
doubt that Australia will, you know, will still be heavily
reliant on the US for defence purposes, not least because we
don't spend, we don't, we don't spend anything ourselves.
We're actually going to be more integrated than ever with the
US, and the submarines are just one small part of that.
Yeah. You've also got the away from
military, the Inflation Reduction Act, which we were
talking about nonstop last year, but it's gone quite quiet on
that front. Do you have a view on whether
Trump strips that right back, or whether there's actually any
material benefits for more than a couple Aussie companies to be
had on that front? That's right, because it's not
as if there's been a lot of American investment or European
investment or anything kind of like to take the place of China,
which is one of, you know, the issues.
It's all very well for them to say we want all these
alternative supply chains. Well, where's the money?
But in terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, again, who would
know? But one of the things that I
think they'll be obviously more of a or of an emphasis on oil
and gas, but but even under the Biden administration, like
American oil production and gas production, which is its highest
level ever. So there's there's a kind of
quite a lot of hot air really talked about all this.
And the other issue with the Inflation Reduction Act is that
it was basically a lot of government money going out to a
lot of different projects, including manufacturing
projects, including in in heavily Republican states.
So it would not be likely. I don't think that either
Congress or Trump would be particularly interested in
pulling those types of projects. Now, maybe there'll be some, you
know, marginal wind project or something like that in, you
know, California that wouldn't get support in the same way that
might have. But all these things are very,
very difficult to untangle. Is there is, do they go, does
the tariffs and the inflation reduction that go hand in hand
at all? Like if he's going to up the
tariffs, is that going to make it more, give people more
incentive to build and purchase in America and they don't need
the IRA as much? Oh, well, I'm, I'm sure that
well, as we know everybody always likes government money
and once it's kind of given it's very hard to not or tax
incentives and things. But I, well, it kind of goes
hand in hand. But with the idea of restoring a
lot of American manufacturing for the reasons we've talked
about, America has more prospect of doing that than Australia
does, in part because of its lower energy costs and lower
costs and greater efficiency overall.
But it doesn't seem also realistic that you're going to
be able to replace, you know, a lot of low cost Chinese goods
with. No need another communist
country. Yeah, you can't get as cheap as
them. Yeah, I think that's the the
interesting angle on the on the trade wars.
It's not just one and two things move.
You know, you take the iPhone factory out of China, it goes
to. Vietnam.
Yeah, exactly. And that's what's been
happening. So it depends how, how strict
they want to be about interpreting all of that.
And I don't think there obviously be some people who
would. And, and Trump has been
consistent. One thing he has been consistent
about is, you know, a belief in terrorists for decades.
But I'm not sure that many people would say they'll
definitely be, you know, they'll say whatever comes from Vietnam
has got made any Chinese parts. Unless it's sensitive, we won't
be able to import any of that because I think the impact on
the American economy and prices would be a bit too much.
Vietnam. Vietnam's cheaper than China,
isn't it? It's low cost like.
That's one of the one of the reasons that a lot of it.
Was moving anyway this country, That's another topic.
Oh, that'll be the next. That'll be 30 years down the
road. They'll be like, Nah, we've got
AD Vietnam. Bloody good soup, but I love the
soup. Well, get the get the crystal
ball out, Jenny, for the next decade.
You said this is a critical decade coming up with energy and
and just just a bit of everything.
What do you think's going to play out?
Well, I think federal. Election's probably the first
place. Federal election.
Because we're going to use this against you in future if you get
it all wrong. Just letting you know.
Which is why I'm going to sound extremely cautious in what I
say. But at the moment, obviously, it
looks most likely that that the Labor Party will not be able to
form majority government. But the question is, you know,
how close they can get for the Liberals to pick up, say
something like 20 seats. That doesn't seem particularly
feasible unless there's an absolute, you know, revulsion
against them. But I don't think that's going
to be they're going to be enough.
But I think we're going to actually have a bit of, I'm
sorry to sound so negative at Christmas, but a bit of
paralysis because you've either going to have the Labor Party
met in a much weakened position or I think less, far less
likely, but possible. You had a you had a Coalition
government. Well, guess what?
They're just going to be stymied in the Senate.
I do, I do think this kind of paralysis, yeah.
But paralysis in Australian politics has been, it's a really
big issue. And I do think the Senate is a,
you know, it's just, you know, where where policies go to die.
Now that can be good if they're bad policies, but not good if
they're good policies. And it certainly doesn't
encourage the type of, you know, restructuring or kind of quite
hard policy choices that I think would be needed to kind of
change the kind of meandering direction of the Australian
economy at the moment. Is that and is one of those
around like tax legislation? Is that one of the big ones?
That would be a huge one. That should be.
That's Jenny's big ticket item I can sense.
Yeah. And so then, of course, then the
other issue is, and everybody hopes that this is not the case
and, and presumably it'll be all right.
But I mean, it is not incorrect to say that the world looks just
a lot more dangerous than it did, you know, 10 years ago,
five years ago. And it is.
And I'm not who, you know, there'll be a Black Swan event.
Nobody knows exactly where it'll come from.
Yeah, I think Taiwan's probably the top of the probability, so
I'd say. Well, yeah, I guess it is and
we'll just see how that works. But I mean, what the Biden
administration was always doing, not not necessarily always
effectively, but it was building up a lot more alliances.
You know, in the in the region that's they they put a lot of
focus on that with, you know, Japan, India, whether whether
they called it the lettuce work, I think of alliances, which is a
kind of fancy name. But whether or not that will
continue, how much more dramatic, I don't know.
But I do think that it's going to be a very well interesting in
in not necessarily the good sense of the word period over
the next few years. And my issue, I guess in terms
of Australian concerns is that the politics of that the, the
governments and public understanding of that is not
really there. And and so nobody wants to talk
about other than the fact we're going to kind of discontinue
what we're doing really. There you are.
So you're not held to much there?
No, there's no specific thing. So you think your first rodeo,
Jenny. Beautiful sports.
I'm all out, thanks a lot for making the time.
It tastes better. I've much more intelligent
conversations with you when I've got other people with me to.
Assist. Now I wonder why that is.
Thanks very much Ian, Merry Christmas to yourself and you
may not be the last AFR person that comes on before the end of
the year. Got to get the two gingers on.
Yes, good. So fantastic.
Yes. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Yeah, beauty. That was bloody sensational.
Thanks to the I don't even know if the AFR knew she was coming
on but she got clearance. Say no now, but when you're a
big deal like ready to do it, you just do whatever the fuck
you want. That's all good.
That's all I. Hope to be at that stage one day
in life. We do have a couple of people to
thank though. But these people do what you
want, that's they are a service provider.
Mineral Mining services. Grounded Grounded Zambic ground
support. CRA Insurance.
Carrie Drill. ASAT salt Bush contracting and
get wet solutions. Mate, I've gotta wait and get
wet at Christmas. Information contained in this
episode of Money of Mine is of general nature only and does not
take into account the objectives, financial situation
or needs of any particular person.
Before making any investment decision, you should consult
with your financial advisor and consider how appropriate the
advice is to your objectives, financial situation and needs.