Aluminium is everywhere in Australian life and industry. It's in the cars and aircraft that connect people across our vast continent. It's in the appliances and devices in our homes.

It's Australian aluminium in the solar panels that feed the electricity grid, lifting national self-reliance and making Australia more energy secure.

It will be in the structure and facades, cables and cooling systems of the data centres that support Australia's modern economy.

The Royal Australian Navy's Cape Class patrol boats are manufactured by Austal, using aluminium extruded by Capral Aluminium. Capral sources roughly 70 per cent of its aluminium from Australia's two largest aluminium smelters in Central Queensland and the Hunter.

That is Australian capability, made by Australian workers, in Australia's national interest.

Our onshore aluminium supply chain is no accident of history. Heeding the lessons of wartime shortages, Australia built one of the world's few end-to-end aluminium supply chains.

Cheap coal-fired electricity generated at state-owned power stations made places like the Hunter attractive to aluminium producers. State governments laid the foundations that helped the Boyne smelter at Gladstone and Tomago Aluminium in the Hunter succeed.

Trusted strategic partners like South Korea and Japan buy most of Australia's aluminium production. This supply chain delivered $23 billion worth of exports for Australia in 2024-25 alone.

No blockade or conflict on the other side of the world can stop Australians from mining bauxite, refining alumina, processing aluminium and extruding products here - powered by Australian wind, solar and gas.

Last month's $2 billion joint investment from the Albanese government and the Queensland government will see Rio Tinto underwrite at least $7.5 billion in additional renewable energy generation in Queensland, making Boyne smelter a world leader in solar and wind-powered aluminium.

Andrew Hastie, the Liberals' self-appointed sovereign capability guy, said the Boyne investment was “painful to watch”. It's the same self-defeating, un-Australian laziness that marked the Coalition's last, wasted decade in office.

Queensland and the Albanese government have led the way for a long-term future for blue-collar industry through to 2040 and beyond, delivering thousands of jobs and apprenticeships. It is an economic and national interest slam dunk. This isn't about propping up a 20th century industry. It's about making Australia stronger and delivering good jobs and investment in a future-focused industry. The Albanese government works for that objective in every industrial region of Australia in the national interest.

Tim Ayres is Minister for Industry and Innovation, Minister for Science

This article was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday 29 April 2026.