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The ‘terrible’ gamble of accelerating the deal between Trump and Albanian crucial minerals
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The ‘terrible’ gamble of accelerating the deal between Trump and Albanian crucial minerals

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Fifth-generation farmer Peter Teasdale warns the country’s food supply could be at risk from the critical mineral boom.
His twenty kilometers of farmland in Rupanyup, 280km northwest of Melbourne, is being eyed by mining companies for the ‘Donald Project’, a mine that will become Australia’s second largest rare earths project.
Teasdale was “disappointed” by the $13 billion deal for rare critical minerals signed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump, sparking fears that such projects would be rushed despite community concerns.
“The real big problem here is that it will only destroy our ability to produce food in the future. And I’m not just talking about the next 10 or 15 years,” he told SBS News.

“We don’t think it should happen on productive farmland in the long term, over generations.”

Teasdale said Victorian farmers had worked tirelessly to make the land productive, providing a quarter of the country’s total food.
He fears that the dust from mining the minerals could contaminate his crops – largely wheat, barley, rapeseed and lentils. Concerns increased after a visit to a mining site earlier this week, large parts of which can no longer produce crops.
“The visible impact is that they don’t have any viable crops there… the fact that it’s all collapsing and holes are coming out of it. It’s just terrible and very difficult to see,” he said.
Teasdale fears the projects will be ‘fast-tracked’, with the crucial minerals deal committing to measures that ‘accelerate, streamline or deregulate permitting timelines and processes’.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Brett Hosking said farmers feel “unheard and voiceless” and like collateral in the discussions between Trump and Albanians, “rather than active participants or partners.”

“When they [farmers] When they hear that, they feel like this is a done deal before we even go through that environmental assessment, and that’s a pretty powerless space to be in,” he said.

The two leaders signed an agreement on rare earths and crucial minerals in front of reporters during what US officials labeled a “bilateral lunch” in the White House Cabinet Room. Source: Getty / Anna Geldmaker

Hosking said it was crucial that the community was involved as a partner in these projects, with time needed to understand and address concerns.

He would like Albanians to understand the impact on agricultural land, the additional risks of increased activity such as fires or traffic accidents, the risk of toxic mineral dust, as well as the disruption from extra traffic or 24/7 light and noise in otherwise peaceful areas.

“Do we value more the minerals that are underground, or the people who live above the ground and farm and exploit their communities?” he wondered, inviting Albanians to visit the affected communities.

While Tuesday’s $300 million in equity commitments focused on projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, the government granted “major project” status to Donald Rare Earth and Astron Corporation’s Minerals Sands the following day.
This means that the federal government can provide additional support to the project, potentially helping the project overcome regulatory hurdles or obtain government approvals.
The deal was widely celebrated by the mining industry, with Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable stating it was in recognition of Australia’s role in developing “new technologies, defense capabilities and renewable energy infrastructure”.

“It reaffirms Australia’s fundamental role in the global supply chain of the very minerals, materials and rare earths the world needs,” Constable said in a statement.

‘Big changes’ raise environmental concerns

Mia Pepper, campaigns director at the Conservation Council of WA, said the deal marks a shift from critical mineral mining focused on renewable energy to defense assets.
She said it’s a “strong language change” that goes beyond “fast-tracking.”
“This was the first time we heard the word deregulation, which has a completely different meaning. It’s not about a slow approval process. It’s about moving regulatory hurdles,” she told SBS News.

“We are deeply concerned about any attempt at deregulation when it comes to the environment because we know that our environmental laws, such as they are, are weak and do not protect our environment.”

Pepper said the number of endangered species is increasing while all environmental health indicators are declining, pointing to Graeme Samuel’s 2020 review of environmental laws which showed the system was broken.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Friday he was “confident” that long-awaited reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, due to be introduced in Parliament next week, will deliver on the recommendations of the Samuel Review.
Lian Sinclair, an economic geographer at the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences, is wary of suggestions that any delays in mining approvals are due to environmental approvals or communities “getting in the way and slowing things down”.
“What we see is that so many of them have had their environmental permits for years,” she said.

Sinclair, which has a database of every single critical mineral mine proposal in Australia, said many sites have approval but are awaiting capital investment.

Environmental measures ‘very worrying’

In 2023, the government passed a bill granting nuclear-powered submarines exemptions from current environmental laws in the national interest, to facilitate the AUKUS defense deal.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge argues these AUKUS splits show “Labour has form”

in excluding projects from long-standing environmental and safety regulations.
“If these arbitrary US deadlines for the development of critical minerals and rare earth projects are met, it suggests that the Albanian government may intend to exploit existing ‘national security’ loopholes that circumvent federal, state and territory environmental laws,” he said.

“You can only imagine how much pressure there will be from people like Gina Reinhart to implement a new national safety approval process for their mining projects so that they get a dirty rap quickly, regardless of the environmental impact.”

A man dressed in formal attire sits and speaks in front of a microphone.

Greens senator David Shoebridge argues it would not be the first time Labor has sought environmental exemptions to push ahead with a major project. Source: MONKEY / Mick Tsikas

Although the current loophole is nuclear specific, it sets a precedent for similar national interest exemptions.

In response to these concerns, a government spokesperson said: “All projects that have the potential to affect matters of national importance must comply with national environmental legislation.”
However, Pepper said we’ve already seen this happen at the state level.

The WA Government says the State Development Bill will boost productivity, giving the Prime Minister the power to “accelerate and oversee regulatory processes”.

A graph showing the expected three largest producers of rare earths.

China has a virtual monopoly on the mining and refining of rare earth metals and the process of separating them from other minerals. Source: SBS news

Pepper said this gives the green light to exemptions from dozens of pieces of legislation, “removing the requirements for companies to comply with our laws.”

“Our laws exist for a reason. They are a safeguard and a protection. And there are new ways that governments are trying to circumvent existing laws, and that is very worrying.”

she said.

Is there a way forward?

Sinclair said any major infrastructure project, mining or otherwise, will have an impact on the environment, whether it be water, land clearing or the local economy.
“That’s just a fact, and that doesn’t mean it’s unacceptable,” she said.
“The question is: is the impact experienced at that local level justified and offset by, for example, the need for renewable energy that could be produced, thereby achieving net zero?”
She explained that this is why community consultation and environmental protection measures are so important: giving a voice to affected communities and finding an acceptable threshold that balances the impacts and how communities will be compensated.
Pepper is concerned about Alcoa’s gallium project in Wagerup, 120 kilometers south of Perth, which received a US$200 ($308 million) stock boost as a result of Tuesday’s deal with Trump.

Galirum is a byproduct of bauxite mining, with the rare mineral serving as part of LED lighting and defense technologies.

The refinery has faced unprecedented public opposition, including fears over the clearing of more Jarrah forests, with 59,000 public submissions against the project currently being processed by the state’s Environmental Protection Agency.
“This is the only Jarrah forest in the world and it has been cut down for 60 years. And Alcoa’s rehabilitation efforts have failed,” she said.
She said that with species like the Baudin’s Cockatoo on life support, the conservation group would like to see the mining sites properly rehabilitated and new mining methods adopted.
“I think we absolutely need to look at new ways to extract minerals from mine waste.
“Reproducing mine waste will be water and chemical intensive, which is a cost we would rather not have for our environment.
“But if that’s the option, rather than cutting down more Jarrah forests, which we know we can’t replace, then I think that would be a preferable option.”

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