HASTINGS, Mr Patrick, Chief Executive Officer, Gladstone Engineering Alliance WILLIAMSON, Mr Rob, Managing Director, Alpha HPA Pty Ltd CHAIR: Welcome. Although the committee doesn't require you to give evidence under oath, I should advise that the hearing is a legal proceeding of the parliament and therefore has the same standing as proceedings of the House. The giving of false or misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as contempt of parliament. The evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. I now invite you to make a brief opening statement before we go on to questions and discussion. Mr Williamson: Thank you for giving us this opportunity. Alpha HPA is an Australian advanced materials company currently constructing its high-purity alumina processing facility in Gladstone, Queensland. Our project will supply ultra-high-purity alumina products into global supply chains, supporting semiconductors for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, lithium ion batteries, LED lighting, pharmaceuticals and other advanced ceramics. As a downstream processor rather than a mining operation, Alpha HPA represents a critical part of Australia's ambition to move beyond extraction and into value-adding. We take feedstock worth about US$400 a tonne and sell it for over $30,000 a tonne. I'll start by sharing a little bit about our experience in developing and constructing a first-of-a-kind project in a regional industrial centre and providing practical insight into what supports strong social licence and sustainable economic development outcomes. We took a long-term view on community engagement. The minister for regional development at the time, the Hon. Glenn Butcher, was quick to remind me that we are not just going to have a flashy PowerPoint and then disappear. We engage proportionately with the business's growth. That means only engaging with the right community leaders at the right time, not sponsoring a golf day out of nowhere when the mayor doesn't even know who we are. We engaged very quickly with the Gladstone Engineering Alliance, which is how I came to get involved. We focused on communicating what our project was and importantly what it wasn't, as well as how the prospects of the business would benefit local communities more broadly. Communities need assurance that environmental approvals are rigorous, science based and proportionate to the actual risk profile of the project. Assessment frameworks should be aligned with comparable operations in established industrial regions and grounded in current environmental science. At the same time, proponents require confidence that permitting pathways are commercially realistic, and in established industrial precincts such as Gladstone approval settings should reflect the presence of existing industry, shared infrastructure and established environmental management systems. Regulatory conditions should drive continuous environmental improvement while remaining proportionate and achievable, rather than introducing uncertainty that undermines project viability. In terms of economic development and contribution to regional and national economies, the opportunity for the country to go downstream beyond just being a quarry must be taken where there is a technological advantage or a commercial partner with inherent know-how on developing midstream manufacturing of these advanced materials. Bauxite becomes HPA for semiconductors. Lithium spodumene becomes refined lithium carbonate for direct use in battery applications. Rare earth ore bodies become refined oxides for EV magnets and semiconductor infrastructure. Taking the mined ore a step or two beyond removing the gangue rock is the logical next step in the country moving down the supply chain for these critical materials. But the pace at which funding can unlock these opportunities is too slow. Government funding builds confidence with international partners and crowds in private capital, but the pace at which that funding is deployed is not meeting the pace at which these technologies are unfolding. Meeting this moment with purpose and intent while understanding that some will win and some will fail is the mindset we must have, or the opportunity will pass us by. Australia competes directly with jurisdictions that offer coordinated policies, streamlined approvals and substantial financial incentives, so we must be competitive on these fronts as well. Industrial precincts such as Gladstone demonstrate the value of clustering, shared infrastructure, existing industrial capability and community familiarity with heavy industry, and all strengthen project viability and social acceptance. As Chair of the Gladstone Engineering Alliance, which plays a critical role in coordinating and connecting industry and government content—we do that work in conjunction with those entities. I also see opportunities for more effective traditional owner engagement where these projects are being established. While government asks that project proponents seek endorsement from traditional owners for RAPs or IESs, in many cases, this is merely box ticking and is not actually creating real value for local groups. There needs to be a more bespoke approach to engagement, as there are often different focus areas for different regions. In Alpha HPA's case, we managed to create an economic participation through an equity and options package, making the PCCC, which is the local prescribed body—the PCCC became shareholders in our business. This was in lieu of a royalty, which doesn't make sense for a manufacturing operation, and this will continue to come up as we get downstream. In conclusion, we have a generational opportunity to build capability in critical minerals and advanced materials manufacturing. Social licence will not be achieved through communication alone. It will be earned through visible regional benefits, stable policy settings, environmental integrity and meaningful workforce development. With the right setting, critical minerals projects can deliver durable regional prosperity while strengthening Australia's position in the global supply chain. Thank you. CHAIR: Thanks very much, Mr Williamson. I appreciate your perspectives on that. I want to clarify where you said that, with your traditional owner group, the PCCC—you'd offered equity. Did you say that that didn't make sense for a manufacturing business? Can you clarify that. What I heard you say and what I think you meant might be different. Mr Williamson: My apologies, Chair. The conventional wisdom for economic participation for mining and general projects is a royalty structure for traditional owner groups. I can recognise how that makes sense. When you have a large endowment across a huge potential area of land, be that underground or open cut, there's an element that says, 'There's going to be an ongoing requirement for engagement in the context of new lands as they're running those explorations. In the context of manufacturing, you're really just making a widget. In our case, we're making a bespoke advanced material, but the point is we're not in exhuming anything out of the ground to create that value. That's been done by our partners, Rio Tinto in this case. What we did was we invited them to take an equity position in the company. We are a listed organisation. They bought $50,000 worth of shares. In return we gave them half a million options in the business, which was a really unique way to solve that economic participation. It gave them upside without making the commitment, because we recognise that it's community money, as they refer to it. It was a really fantastic deal. They participate obviously with us, as and when we work together. That's how we did that. CHAIR: Presumably as your company continues to become more and more profitable and does more things, they have those options. Mr Williamson: Yes, the options are there. When the strike price is in the money, as they call it, then they've got the option. They can sell the option as it is with and gain the intrinsic value of that option, or they can decide to exercise that option, buy the stock at the trigger price and have an immediate upside available to them to either purchase more or do whatever they want with it as an investment. That was a really neat solution to managing risk for them, but they also put a little bit of skin in the game, so to speak, up front with a small contribution for the initial placement that we gave them. CHAIR: They take a dividend too, if there's one to be had. Mr Williamson : If there's one, yes. As a developing business, that's unusual. CHAIR: Yes, I'm saying in the longer term. Mr Williamson : I look forward to that champagne problem! But yes. CHAIR: I thought that's what you meant. Mr Williamson : Yes, apologies. I was a little bit fast in getting through that. CHAIR: No, all good. I am particularly interested in what you're doing, because I have Tomago Aluminium in my seat. One of the reasons that I put forward very strongly for saving that smelter was what you're doing. If you don't have Australia's largest producer of aluminium requiring the amount of bauxite, then there's not enough bauxite being refined to alumina to provide you with your base product that you're able to value add. It would have put real pressure on bauxite mining in Australia had we lost that smelter. You were one of the things that I cited amongst other things. It's important in the whole supply chain that there is a large offtake to keep the supply chain going. Otherwise, you have all sorts of complications. That aside, congratulations on what you're doing. There are lots and lots of things that I want to talk to you about, but I want to be fair to other members of the committee as well. Maybe we can talk a little bit about why you chose Gladstone. Can we put that in context as well. Mr Williamson : Obviously the region has an industrial complex essentially structured around it, from a labour point of view in terms of trades and operational capability. The access to feedstock is very local, with Rio Tinto and Queensland Alumina Ltd, and most importantly there is a technical reason in that we are connected by pipeline directly to Orica. Orica has an ammonium nitrate operation. Our technology utilises nitrate chemistry, and a byproduct of that chemistry is ammonium nitrate, which we give back to them. We borrow ammonia and nitric acid, and then it gets converted into ammonium nitrate as a byproduct, which we give back. CHAIR: A byproduct of your process? Mr Williamson : Yes. If we were not co-located and connected to Orica, that would become a very expensive proposition, because there's over 200,000 tonnes of that material going back and forth between the two sites annually, when it's up and running. By being connected by pipeline directly, we become an integrated facility. That's one of the main reasons. Of course, it's supported by everything else that we have there as well. CHAIR: Whereabouts is your product going, largely? Mr Williamson : Our customer base is predominantly Japan and Korea for semiconductors, and the United States. We also have some in Europe for some aerospace applications. There is also a battery business in China that we sell some materials to, but that's a small portion. CHAIR: How many people do you employ? Mr Williamson : Currently, 170 people. When the big facility is up and running—we're well into construction; we're over halfway—it will be about 250 altogether. We've got about 60 people here in Brisbane as part of those numbers. CHAIR: Tell me about your interaction. One of the things I'm really interested in is approvals processes' length of time. What was your experience like with that? With your interaction between the state government and federal agencies, did you have complications, if I can put it like that? Mr Williamson : Probably the biggest point of friction would've been between state and local. That's not to say there weren't people all wanting to get the same thing. It's not that anybody was actively working against anything. It's just that there were, at the ground level, some infrastructure access-related issues that needed to be sorted out between the council and the state in the context of environmental permitting. It took a little chutzpah from me to get that to work. It's working, but that took some time. I think the comment that I made in my statement in relation to that coordination piece is really, really important so that things like that don't drag you down, because, if access to trade waste facilities or energy or whatever it might be is not a quick won-and-done, slam-dunk process, it immediately becomes a CP to any debt facility. That then slows you down and creates perceived risk for debt providers, so we need to be better than that. CHAIR: Are you using this new coordinator-general role— Mr Williamson : We did use that. CHAIR: We heard from the Queensland government on that this morning— Mr Williamson : It was exceptional. CHAIR: and we want to know how that works in practice. I think you're probably a good example. Mr Williamson : It takes a lot of the effort out of the process. They reach out to the department of main roads, to the DETSI, as it's known here, and to the council, and they get all that feedback. So we submit one application to the OCG, and then they coordinate feedback. CHAIR: The Office of the Coordinator-General, OCG. Mr Williamson : Yes, that's right. CHAIR: I'm just getting that for the purposes of the Hansard, because I know they'll be— Mr Williamson : Yes. The Office of the Coordinator-General coordinates responses from those parties, and that gives us immediate feedback as to what we will likely see when we start actually getting into the doing of things. We still have to go directly to DETSI, for example, which the Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation, for environmental authority. It doesn't circumvent that requirement. You still have to go through that process, but you get initial feedback on what you're planning to do and what your environment-relevant activities are from the department so that you can start to think about what some of the challenges are. Again, one of the elements around that—which some of my comments in the statement and in our submission refer to—is the idea that, in seeing some consistency that's there around industry, you can see publicly what their standards are that they need to have met. We used that as a guide. That's not what happened, so that created a little bit of uncertainty and significantly more capex for us. CHAIR: Can I just clarify: you were expected to have higher standards than what you witnessed? Mr Williamson : We expected to have a standard—shall we say a limit—on our discharge requirements that would be of a similar level to that of some of our neighbours in the region. It was substantially lower. We expected it to be a little bit lower, because we recognise that, every chance we get, we should try to make an improvement, but it was materially lower. That put it outside the contingency plans that we had in place around that, and that cost us $20 million to $30 million additional in capex. CHAIR: In having to deal with a lower output and a higher standard. Mr Williamson : In having to deal with that, yes. We've continued to negotiate with the department on that, and they've been constructive. But my experience in the United States, for example, with this kind of thing is that you have a compliance period to meet a new standard—as a new standard is trying to be brought in, give everybody the opportunity to try to meet that standard over time, as opposed to just going bang, and it all happens at once. CHAIR: Mr Williamson, you made a really interesting comment in your opening statement about what the project is not. Mr Williamson : Yes. CHAIR: That struck a chord. I'm really interested to hear about that, vis-a-vis no golf days, so talk to me about community/local government interactions. As you know, one of our driving factors in this inquiry is we're looking at economic development but we're also looking at social licence. It seems to me like you've taken a bit of a different approach to that, and I'm quite interested in what you've done. Mr Williamson : We distance ourselves from the mining industry in the context of the fact that the material has no link to any commodity markets. The pricing that we get for our material is based purely on performance. That's how we're able to attract a significantly higher price for the material compared with smelter-grade alumina, which is a commodity in and of itself. CHAIR: To clarify that, are you saying that you're essentially not a price-taker? You buy your alumina at what you buy it at. Is that what you're saying? Mr Williamson : We buy our feedstock at whatever that commodity pricing is, which is subject to markets. CHAIR: You're a price-taker in that— Mr Williamson : We're a price-taker in that regard, but it's obviously very, very cheap. It's only about four per cent of our operating costs. The sale price is very much a contract between you and me. You have a desire for that material to do a certain thing, and, if we can meet that requirement and that specification and it performs and provides a benefit in your piece of technology, then we negotiate one to one on what that price will be. CHAIR: As opposed to something like the London Metal Exchange, where they are literally tolling for a price. Mr Williamson : Yes. CHAIR: Thank you for clarifying. Mr Williamson : There's no exchange or warehouse that I can sell the material to at a price. There's no index for our material, which is where some of the challenges come in with a lot of these sorts of downstream, advanced-materials-manufacturing businesses. It is that the contracts with customers are often under a non-disclosure agreement, for starters, and there is no transparent market for the pricing. That poses an issue when you're dealing with financiers as well. CHAIR: I apologise to my fellow committee members. This is one of my babies. Dr TRISH COOK: I'm very interested too, but I've just missed a piece of the jigsaw. Your industrial feedstock—what is that? Mr Williamson : It's alumina hydrate, which is Al(OH)3, for those keeping count on the chemistry side. It is the last step in the Bayer process of producing smelter-grade alumina before it goes through a calcination, which is a high-energy step of 900 degrees Celsius. Then it is turned into smelter-grade alumina, which is aluminium oxide, in a sense. Dr TRISH COOK: But you're an alternative process? Mr Williamson : We are an alternative process, so we— Dr TRISH COOK: Going back up the stream, you said—is it recycling? Mr Williamson : No. We take that aluminium hydrate, and it's fed into the front end of our process. Dr TRISH COOK: So, going back a little bit further, the rocks are crushed— CHAIR: Bauxite. Mr Williamson : Yes. Bauxite is mined— Dr TRISH COOK: Okay, bauxite has to be mined. Mr Williamson : Rio does that bit. They ship the bauxite to Gladstone. It goes into one of two Gladstone alumina refineries, which is Queensland Alumina Limited or Rio Tinto Yarwun. They then digest that bauxite in caustic. That caustic produces alumina hydrate. Alumina hydrate is then calcined at 900 degrees Celsius to produce aluminium oxide, or smelter-grade alumina, which goes to Boyne Smelters or which goes to Tomago Aluminium to produce aluminium metal. We take that alumina hydrate and put it into our top-secret process—I can't tell you how it works—and produce this very, very high purity alumina material, which is 99.9995 per cent pure, whereas traditional alumina for aluminium production is 99.9-ish per cent pure. But the difference in that purity is chalk and cheese in terms of the technologies that we engage with. Dr TRISH COOK: So you're still using raw materials in your process; it's not recycling old industrial aluminium. Mr Williamson : No. Correct. Dr TRISH COOK: Okay. I just wanted to clarify. Mr Williamson : That's a good question. CHAIR: It's a good point. Then what are your end products? I think that might be useful for the committee to hear. Mr Williamson : There are quite a few, but in terms of the basics there's an aluminium nitrate crystal which looks like sugar. We actually use a sugar crystalliser to make it. That is a precursor in lots of different applications and is more of a genuine, high, high purity chemical that usually gets consumed and dissolved into something or used as a catalyst in something. That one in particular will go into batteries to make an improved new generation of anodes in lithium ion batteries, which will bring some Australian content back into the batteries that are coming to the country for battery storage in your house or, obviously, in EVs. There's an aluminium hydrate or hydroxide, which we made. That material is going into semiconductors for thermal filter applications, which improves heat conductivity. There's a gamma alumina and then there's an alpha alumina. Both of these are still aluminas; they're just different crystalline phases and they have different physical properties. At a core level, they're the four main products. We also make a suspension that is a nano-alumina slurry, which looks like milk, and that is sold into the semiconductor industry for making what I could describe as an exfoliating scrub for semiconductor applications. Dr TRISH COOK: Is most of that product exported? Mr Williamson : Yes, all of it. Basically, we do not have any customers in Australia. It all goes to allied nations. Dr TRISH COOK: I see. CHAIR: While we've got you talking about this, I think it's actually important for us all to know. You've just described your part of the process. This is where people talk about 'from mind to magnet', like it's about three steps. It's about 3,000 steps, it often seems to me in my mind! So you're sending your products off, and you've described how they're put into an anode for a battery or they're used in other things. But, to get from what you create to a chip, for example— Mr Williamson : There are about four more companies that do that. CHAIR: Yes. I think that we don't have enough understanding. I'm not saying 'we' as in the committee; I'm saying this as a country. People often say, 'Oh, we just need to value-add. We need to do more processing,' but my point is that there are many more steps that we could strive to do here in Australia even if we don't get to the point where we're making chips or batteries or whatever. There's still a lot more value-adding that could happen, and I see that as important as well. Mr Williamson : Absolutely. The area that Australia brings to the table in terms of existing technical capability is certainly around that next step in processing. Everything that we're doing in Alpha HPA is hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy type stuff, for which there is a lot of inherent industry experience here in Australia. CHAIR: They are water and heat. Mr Williamson : Yes, they are water and heat processes in types of chemistry. We have that skill set here already. When you then start going into the next step, which might be making spherical alumina for the semiconductors, that's a world where a lot of Japanese and Korean manufacturers have already got that market licked. So then the challenge is: what's the best way to approach that? As an example, you could invite a partner to come and work alongside us rather than trying to go head to head with those businesses, because, at the moment, they're our customers. And there are certainly many others. I mentioned rare earth magnets and that kind of stuff. Just taking that next step down is a huge effort in itself but creates an enormous amount of value. Yes, there are for sure further opportunities to go downstream, but in my view we've got to pick and choose the quick wins first. CHAIR: As a committee making recommendations to the government, we note that you've made some excellent suggestions, but, for your business, what could we do to potentially get you to consider taking on a partner from, say, Japan or Korea and saying, 'Look, rather than going head to head with you in the next two steps'—do you want to talk about that while we've got the opportunity? Mr Williamson : I think that would be an interesting discussion to have with some of our customers. I think about how we could engage more broadly with, say, the Japanese government to look to do something along those lines. There are some big players in Japan, like Sumitomo and Nippon Steel, that have enormous involved organisations that sit underneath, and some of those people are our customers. I think that piece is probably how that could work to drive an outcome where we could maybe bring one of those companies to Australia to then work and collaborate with us on developing or providing that technology here. That might be a way to go. I think the Australian government could support that. I laboured the point about pace. That is the challenge, I think—how fast we can do these things. The pace at which these technologies are developing is extraordinary, and, if we do not take the opportunities when they come, we will miss them, because somebody else will be going faster than us. There are other jurisdictions that do, so we've got to focus on that. Obviously, our position in the supply chain from a preferred territory, if you will, is an advantage, but we've still got to meet those time criticalities, as I mentioned before. CHAIR: David, I can see you're packing up. Did you want to ask anything before you leave? Mr FARLEY: Yes. First of all, I'm very complimentary about what you're able to achieve with the equity position with the traditional owners. Mr Williamson : Thank you. Mr FARLEY: First of all, it's unique. They must have been well advised. Not only did you get them to write a cheque, but—are they participating in the performance as well? Mr Williamson : Yes. They work with us. We're in discussions with them at the moment around how we can build an onboarding induction. The whole point is to try to create a safe space for people to come and work in the business. That's the idea. So that's part of the work that we're doing with them. And, of course, more practically, as we've been doing excavation works and other bits and pieces around the site, they come to site when we need them to and conduct archaeological surveying and observation. Mr FARLEY: The other issue you raised, which we heard often this morning, is the dynamics of the capital market for these advancing technologies, like you're in. If you look at Australia and compare it to the US, which is a very dynamic market—how do we get ourselves to that point? Are we managing value and capital properly in Australia? Mr Williamson : That's a very good question. The landscape for a listed entity with a developing technology on the ASX is not good, and it's not good, because we have some of the weakest regulation on short-selling in the world on the ASX. People are surprised to hear this every time I tell them. The Australian market is a natural hedge—a negative, short hedge—against Asian markets. That's because you can short-sell any stock on the ASX. When a robot, an AI algorithm, sees a funding overhang on the market, they will short-sell you, and soon the share price goes down, and then you can't raise capital to meet government funding requirements. This is a problem. Mr FARLEY: This is a very critical point in what we're doing. Mr Williamson : I have a whole 20-page paper that I could provide to you about what is going on there. There are plenty of other case studies within it that talk about other government funding vehicles that have funded companies, and those companies have suffered the same fate. CHAIR: We might get you to send us that, if that's okay. Mr Williamson : I'm happy to share that with you. CHAIR: Thank you so much. Did you want to pick up some questioning there, Ash? Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR: Yes, maybe around workforce. I'm quite keen to understand. I note that, across the papers, you talk a little bit about particular skill set requirements. Do you want to talk through what those potential future pressures might be for you guys? Mr Williamson : I think there are two things. There's construction labour; that's a big one. We've been able to attract good construction labour with local content. That's been, in part, thanks to the GEA, and the installation work is being done locally, but then there's the technical side. We're not a mining business, but, more broadly, there is a ginormous skill shortage in mining applications and mining technical degrees. We're producing about 40 mining engineers per year versus the 400 or 500 in the United States, just as an example. That doesn't sound right, when you think about Australia's position in the mining sector, globally. There's a huge mismatch between the number of mining engineers being pumped out of university here compared to the United States. In terms of our technology, we teach people how to run our technology. One of the things that we're focused on is how we can recruit in such a way that doesn't make people feel like they would be imposters for applying for a role. Words like 'previous experience desirable'—we do not use that terminology. That is how you attract other people in the workforce that have been wanting to get into it. They feel like, 'Oh, if I have a go, maybe I'll get a look in.' That is often women, who have been working in other roles—be that as a real estate agent or a butcher or a baker or a pharmacist. We have all four of those working in our company now, and they've come from a different place, but they have the attitude that we're looking for. They fit the culture. That's how we've ended up with 40 per cent women in the business. Dr TRISH COOK: How many employees do you have? Mr Williamson : Currently, 170. CHAIR: But you've got your expansion plans? Mr Williamson : The expansion will put us up to about 250. Beyond that, we think there will be another opportunity. There's an enormous amount of demand for our materials for semis in particular, for semiconductors, so we're already planning a stage 3, which will be a further expansion into Gladstone further. CHAIR: What's your footprint, just out of curiosity? Mr Williamson : It's about a 300 metre by 300 metre plot of land at the moment, but, as I say, that will probably go up if we do stage 3, which—as I say, we're already in discussions with the Queensland government to acquire an option on the land around us, and that will probably be another 10 hectares or 20 hectares or something like that. CHAIR: Do you have competitors? Have we got other people doing this at this stage? Mr Williamson : There are other HBA technology start-ups, I guess you could call it, but we don't see them as our competitors as much as the Japanese in particular. Sumitomo and Nippon Light Metal are probably our two actual competitors in the market, and they've been in production for a couple of decades. They have what I would call the incumbent technology, which actually uses finished aluminium metal as the feedstock, which is a very expensive process, especially right now. It also uses an alkoxide technology, which demands, essentially, alcohol, a very highly refined concentrated alcohol—the cost of which is linked to the oil price. That's another problem. CHAIR: On your technology, you said earlier that it's obviously highly proprietary. Are there other people around the world—are you novel? I'm just trying to get a sense— Mr Williamson : Completely novel. There's nobody else that can do— CHAIR: There's no one else doing it the way you do it. Mr Williamson : That's right. We've used solvent-extraction technology, which has been used commonly for copper metals refining, uranium and rare earths, but we're the first people in the world to do it for aluminium. Mr FARLEY: Is that— Mr Williamson : No, it's protected by trade secret. Chemical patents are very difficult to defend, so we protect it like Coca-Cola does its recipe. Dr TRISH COOK: With your expansion plans, are you connecting with the community about the plans? Mr Williamson : Not yet. We've spoken about it publicly a little bit in ASX announcements and things of that nature and if we're at a conference or what have you, but, until that expansion plan gets a little bit more concrete—we haven't spoken in any great degree yet. I think, once we get the option on the land, we will then start a more direct conversation. It's one of those balancing acts for the business where we don't want to seem like it's becoming a distraction from just delivering our first full-scale thesis, if you will, of the business. We don't make money right now. We have a few million bucks in revenue from stage 1, but we need to deliver that first and foremost and not get distracted by other projects. Dr TRISH COOK: This morning, we spoke to people regarding engagement, and the key message coming through there is 'get in early' and do that early, before decisions are made. Is that something that you'd agree with? Mr Williamson : Absolutely. I think, when the time comes, when we start to get a little bit more concrete around it, we will have those conversations. We have a lot of goodwill in the community because of the way in which we've gone about our business, and I'm sure it will be well received, but it doesn't change the fact that we need to go through the process. CHAIR: I don't think we've got to answer or flesh out what you're not. Mr Williamson : The reason I say that is that we are a part of the department of resources in the sense that we're a critical mineral, but we're not a mined critical mineral. Yes, the origins of it starts with bauxite, but that's not a critical mineral either. We're manufacturing something into a critical mineral. Effectively, that's what's going on. In terms of attracting workforce and so on, I think drawing people to come and work for a business that doesn't make any money is a challenge in and of itself. How can you be competitive when you've got Rio Tinto, ConocoPhillips and Gladstone Ports Corporation paying humungous salaries? How do we get a look in? So creating a level of interest in the business that is attractive, particularly to younger people, is actually part of the battle. We've been able to draw a lot of people away from their current employers on the basis of being part of something new, exciting and very much future facing. CHAIR: What's the timeframe on being profitable? Mr Williamson : We should be ramping up in 2028, and we'll be profitable reasonably quickly. The cash break-even is about 30 per cent of production. CHAIR: Excellent. Trish. Dr TRISH COOK:   This is to Patrick and the Engineering Alliance: what's your key message to us, as, presumably, you're representing a group? Mr Hastings : Yes, we represent the whole industrial ecosystem of Central Queensland. I think the key message is really quite simple: leave the place in a better state than when you first came in. Social licence isn't about engagement. Social licence is about investment. Making sure that you're actually investing effectively both in employment and in local content is really what starts to stimulate not just the local economy but also the goodwill. That's where the likes of Alpha have done exceptionally well. We were onsite last week, and in fact every business on there was a local business. The wonderful thing about Central Queensland is that the skill sets and the capability are there on your doorstep. It's about really making sure you lean into this concept of a cluster and drive local content and local employment for the betterment of the community. Dr TRISH COOK: With regard to connecting infrastructure or sharing infrastructure, is that something that you do up there? Mr Hastings : Not as well as we would like. Dr TRISH COOK: The follow-up to that is: who do you think should fund that? Mr Hastings : That is probably, very honestly, the bane of my existence at the moment. It's very much no-man's-land at the moment. There is an element of risk attached to shared infrastructure. It's not the province of the federal government, it's not the province of state government, it's not the province of local government and it's not necessarily the province of industry, because who's going to wear all of the risk all at once? There is an opportunity in there to talk about what a shared infrastructure business might look like to stimulate growth in the area. Dr TRISH COOK: Is that shared between industry and government? Mr Hastings : I think it could be shared between industry and government, or you could almost go as far as a standalone business if you could find a risk model that worked. I think there are two things that are hindering the growth of a cluster like Gladstone's. The first one is the overlap of approvals that occur. We're very lucky that we've got a state development area that's put aside for industrial growth. Every business on there has to undertake all of the same studies over again for both state and federal government requirements—actually doing the work for those studies to enable accelerated growth. The second one is the infrastructure cost—everything from trade waste all the way through to thermal energy. How do you actually start to replicate what's been done in Europe? It's fundamental. Dr TRISH COOK: What do you mean about what's been done there? Mr Hastings : In Europe, there are a lot of green industrial precincts that have come up. A lot of those have been investments into shared infrastructure to allow industry to grow faster. I think there's an opportunity for Gladstone to look at how to accelerate the growth of what we're calling the second wave of refining manufacturing in Central Queensland, which is the advanced manufacturing that we've been talking about with Alpha. Dr TRISH COOK: Are you a high user of energy in your quest? Mr Hastings : Yes, I think Gladstone currently uses about one-third of Queensland's energy. Dr TRISH COOK: Oh! Where does it get that energy from? Is it just the grid? Mr Hastings : No. We've got Gladstone Power Station as well as three other power stations in the region. But we're in a massive transition at the moment. Gladstone Power Station was announced for closure in 2029. We, particularly Rio Tinto with the alumina refineries and the smelter, are going through quite a significant shift to net zero. This is all running parallel to the build-out of the transmission that needs to support that growth. It's going to be a very busy three to five years. Dr TRISH COOK: What source does the power station have? Mr Hastings : Coal. Dr TRISH COOK: Sorry, I did say I was from the west! Mr Hastings : It's all good. It's a very interesting process. It's very different to Collie in terms of the closure because it is an industrial ecosystem. The workforce issue isn't so much of a challenge; rather, the shared infrastructure of power becomes quite a significant challenge. Dr TRISH COOK: Thank you. CHAIR: I might cite an example that you might look to for some guidelines. I'm from the Hunter and we obviously have highly competitive mining operations all going to the Port of Newcastle. We developed a thing called the Hunter Valley Coal Chain, where you had super competitive coalmines all competing for one railway corridor to one port, and it was around how to make time to port fair. It's actually a cooperative model where it's infrastructure shared by competitors. It's basically run by a group of savants who are all incredibly gifted mathematicians and actuaries. It also works alongside passenger rail. It's how those coal wagons come down that piece of shared infrastructure. It works brilliantly. I've been there. I've taken the Minister for Resources there. She was agog at how it works. It's quite remarkable. It's a coordinated model that works with highly cutthroat competition, and it's shared infrastructure. It's a really interesting model. It's worth finding out more about it. It's not completely parallel to what you're describing, but it's a very interesting model. Mr Hastings : It's the same principle. CHAIR: Thanks for your time, your expertise, your excellent submission and your recommendations. They really are valued. Rob, could you send the information on the short selling on the ASX to the secretariat before Monday 12 October. If that fits in with you, that'd be great. You're going to be sent a copy of your transcript, and you'll have the opportunity to request corrections to any errors in the transcript. Thank you very much for your time and energy and all that you're doing for your country. We appreciate it. Committee adjourned at 15:21