PRESIDENT Donald Trump has announced the United States will invest $AUD560 million to fast‑track developing a rare earth mineral near the tiny NSW village of Fifield, an hour’s drive west of Parkes and 36 minutes north of Condoblin, the seat of the Lachlan Shire
The US government via the Pentagon (the U.S. Department of Defense) is providing a US$400 million (approx. AU$560 million) loan to Sunrise Energy Metals to develop the Syerston scandium project in paddocks near Fifield in the NSW central-west.
Scandium is a rare earth element used to strengthen alloys for defence, aerospace and high‑tech manufacturing and is currently dominated by Chinese supply.
The construction stage of the project is expected to involve up to 1000 workers, scaling down to an operational workforce of up to 400 full‑time equivalent jobs as a minimum over a 32‑year mine life period.
Sunrise Energy Metals has already made some savvy insider investors rich, rising from just 21c a share in December 2024 to $18.68 last week – an 8795% increase. Site works have started and production of high grade scandium oxide is expected to start in 2028.
But how much of this wealth will translate into economic development for the Lachlan and Parkes shires is another matter. For comparison we can look at the nearby Northparkes Operations mine owned by Evolution Mining, a major copper, gold, and silver mining enterprise 27 kilometres northwest of Parkes,
Gemini AI tells us that more than 37% of the total economic output of Parkes Shire relies entirely on the mining sector, making the ongoing local procurement from the Northparkes Operations mine essential for keeping local family businesses operational.
A recent $634 million asset expansion at the mine is expected to inject an anticipated $40-$50 million annually into project labor, heavily benefiting regional contractors and service providers.
Parkes Shire Mayor Neil Westcott said back in February Evolution Mining’s announcement of a $634 million investment in Northparkes Operations, is “a transformational commitment that secures jobs, economic growth and long-term confidence for the Central West.”
Parkes is also the central hub and flagship city for the Inland Rail project, sitting at the intersection of the interstate east-west Trans-Australian Railway line and the north-south Inland Rail corridor and linked to that rail infrastructure is the Parkes Special Activation Precinct (SAP), a 4800-hectare master-planned industrial park designed by the NSW Government to leverage the intersection of the two major lines.
Parkes’ population peaked at 12,709 in 2015 and at last count in 2025 was 11,136 – a small town by international standards but a major regional centre for NSW. The town’s population appears set to rise in coming years.
In 2021, the biggest employment sector in Parkes Shire was not mining, but health care and social assistance at 805 or 13% of the local workforce – in other words government-funded jobs – a pattern seen across Australia.
Mining came in second at 528 or 8.5% of jobs, just three jobs ahead of public administration and safety – again a government sector also on 8.5% of local jobs.
Evolution Mining employs 440 people on site at Northparkes Operations and 180 contractors and there are more than 10 emerging or advanced critical mineral and precious metal exploration projects underway in the region, including the Syerston scandium project.
Trundle, a town of some 330 people between Parkes and Fifield (568 in district in 2021), appears to have escaped almost certain decline and death, largely thanks to a healthy district wheat and canola cropping industry which employs 41% of the district workforce, but also thanks to mining, which employs some 25 people in the town.
Trundle hosts two major regional music and cultural events that draw thousands of visitors annually to the small farming town: the famous Trundle ABBA Festival and Trundle Bush Tucker Day.
Condoblin (population 3140) being only 36 minutes drive from the new mine site, is also well-placed to benefit from the project.
Big deal about $500M of rare earths still to be found in the ground when we are pulling out $100B of coal and iron ore out the ground every year!
Local benefits? The workers will spend money buying food, eating and drinking at the pubs, probably use some of the motels for accommodation. Tools and equipment providers should do very well, if it is 32 years, businesses will be set up to provide vehicles, machinery, spare parts etc. It will benefit the mine greatly on production/efficiency if repairs/ spare parts can be locally sourced rather than shutting the whole plant down for weeks, waiting for a very necessary $500 part that has to be sent from the other side world, costing the mine tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands/even millions in lost production and wages!
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Those minerals in the ground, they belong to us all that were born here, not to the unconstitutional government which is literally stealing the money that should be our dividend, sent by cheque at the end of every single month, like what happens in Alaska!
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Me? I have a miners permit. Had a big celebratory drink yesterday because I found a cluster of clear sapphires, which is like a ‘gold specimen’, a sapphire specimen because all the sapphires, looks about 6 are all poking out of the host rock (maybe quartz? maybe it is all corundum-sapphire). This was a just a prospecting mission, to see what is there…Dark blue, blue, orange, yellow, green crystal clear sapphires. Now I am looking for raw diamonds, I have so many candidates, they aren’t easy to identify, as they just look like ordinary pebbles, but look waxy/greasy…I believe I have found virgin ground for gem mining, in west gippsland, at the bottom of the mountains. Totally unamed creek system that I now all ‘Secret Creek’. I’m hardly half way through looking at my ‘paydirt’ too, something to do today while the sun is out (necessary for finding gems, they look like ordinary pebbles! It looked like a bit of crystalline quartz, I have photo proof of its sapphire structure, which is hexagonal-barrel like, with one pointed end, the other coming out of the host rock/chunk of sapphire (not sure of that yet, I am new to this gem thing).
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I was looking for gold, some but not much there but I found so much crushed/tiny dark blue/orange/yellow/crystal clear sapphire in the heavies, the black sand was half dark sapphire chips! I had to go back, specifically looking for gems, well I have found something, just one thing so far, as big as my little finger nail and about half as thick, that makes it all worth it. I have made money and have plenty of diamond candidates to test. More Sapphires to find.
Commenter dd2,
You are on a mission aren’t you, your single biggest problem is you are a bore.
Swiss citizens are not Swissy. Swissy is running the show from all the gold they have stowed away in the mountains, which underwrites [ in reality ] all the credit you are talking about, the fiat money your bot has given numbers of. The BIS is a law unto itself and does all the major money laundering off the books. Yes the Swiss locations are all “rented”, in theory. I too could own something and pretend to rent it via a most basic company structure. I suggest dd2, instead of dreaming up a new alias several times a day, you come up with your own material, and stop relying on mine. I am not the story !!! I am not the article !!! Stop copying me !!! Stop stalking me !!! Go away
Hey folks,
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Here’s a general observation framed as a rhetorical question, or maybe a rhetorical question framed as an observation…
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Did you know, folks, that Australia is in the TOP 3 of the world’s LARGEST LNG exporters? True story, even BEFORE Peace President Ginger Nuts started his illegal unprovoked war against Iran spattered with all manner of egregious war crimes and perfidious atrocities and shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Australia exported more LNG to the world than even Qatar or Russia.
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Think on that for just a moment, folks, PONDER the matter – around $75 BILLION in annual SALES of Australian LNG to the WORLD…
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[ https://www.ga.gov.au/aecr2025/production-and-trade ]
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And here’s the POINT, folks, here’s where this little snippet of meditation has RELEVANCE to the headline article…
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Did you know, folks, that Australia gets MORE TAX REVENUE from BEER SALES in Australia than from its LNG exports to the ENTIRE WORLD? That’s right, folks, $2.5 Billion in tax from BEER SALES and only $1.5 Billion from LNG exports!
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So now you gotta be asking yourself, folks, how many $BILLIONS in rare earth metals is gonna be dug up from Western NSW and shipped off overseas to build Peace President Ginger Nuts’ Pirates-R-Us WAR MACHINE, while NSW and Australia and the Australian people get JACK SHIT in return, and maybe some mobster threats just to make sure we all keep in line and don’t start getting too UPPITY?
re: “debt originating in Swissyland”
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Restrain your fantasy. Your “Swissyland” controls nothing. BIS is situated in Switzerland but it is certainly NOT Swiss owned. It’s a globalist processing weighstation. Switzerland is only useful while it has banking laws shrouded in SECRECY and PROTECTIVE provisions for its coded (seemingly anonymous) account holders. And while it retains its political neutrality, unlike other countries, which allows access to various money players irrespective of their politics.
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Globalist corporations like to base themselves in favourable tax and banking jurisdictions and Switzerland is designed to be among the safest and most facilitating jurisdictions with excellent scope for ‘financial maneuverability’. Hence it attracts a lot of players and is merely one of the globalist playgrounds. The players are NOT even remotely ‘Swissyland” owned as you suggest.
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The money cults of New York, City of London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Shanghai/Hong Kong are much bigger players. Your “Swissyland” is merely a neutral, safe haven resort where unlike mere mortals the cults and their operatives don’t need to worry about ID and names and addresses when making deposits or withdrawals. Your Swissyland is simply more prestigious and established than Panama and the Cayman Islands because of the turnover. Otherwise, “Swissyland” and its “Swissy” population control no one. They’re servants, not masters.
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Refer: “The main types of investors in Western countries’ debt include domestic banks, non-bank private investors, and foreign investors, with a significant role played by investment funds and hedge funds. These investors have become increasingly important as central banks have reduced their bond holdings.”
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or
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“Australia mostly borrows from non-resident investors, who hold about two-thirds of its government debt, with the largest groups including central banks, commercial banks, asset managers, and hedge funds.
unsw.edu.au Wikipedia
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Sources of Australian Government Debt
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Australia primarily borrows from non-resident investors, who hold approximately two-thirds of the country’s government debt. The major groups of these investors include:
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Major Investor Groups
.Investor Type Percentage of Debt Held
Banks 50%
Asset Managers 25%
Hedge Funds 17%
Central Banks 5%
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Geographic Distribution
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Asia (excluding Japan): 17.6%
United Kingdom: 7.2%
North America: 5.1%
Europe: 1.9%
Japan: 0.2%
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The Australian government issues treasury securities, which are bought by these investors, effectively lending money to the government in exchange for interest payments. This structure allows Australia to finance its budget deficits and fund various public projects.”
Michael Slovanos: Perhaps some of our regular commenters could provide some comments that are actually relevant to the story posted?
These days you need ID for just about everything except for the ‘privilege’ to donkey vote for one of the Labour or Liberal or Greens factions leading us by the nose.
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The Uniparty politicians have sold us Aussies out long ago. Do we really need to show up and show any ID to donkey vote for the same fake Uniparty stooges? What? We need ID to support more of our national demolition?
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Showing ID when we donkey vote won’t stop us being bled dry, Aussies. Just look at what’s been done to our Lucky Country over the last 60-70 years while we were sleep walking and being raped by our traitorous and treacherous politicians.
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If you’re too young to know where we were and how much we were producing self sufficiently in the 1960s and 1970s then ask your grandads and grandmas how low we have sunk and how much we’ve been plundered by the cockroaches.
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If it weren’t for our natural resources we’d be long ago rivaling bankrupt and hungry Weimar Germany …. Those are the same natural resources which the Uniparty is DESPERATELY blocking and making unaffordable for US but so cheaplly selling and making freely available to others! How is that for TREACHERY and TREASONOUS behaviour, Aussie boys and girls?
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Canberra should be extinguished as our Capital and our political cockroach elite and their Parliamentary facilities should be relocated to the centre of Australia. Under Ayers Rock. It’s the only way to stem the bleeding and save Australia from its engineered dependence and subservience to globalists who mentor our political elites.
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Australia will soon be the Lucky Colony again. Your ID and donkey vote won’t fix it.
https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/srl/3b0e39fb-094.pdf
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So it all came down to the company securing funding.
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Sold out minions in Canberra fork out billions of dollars purchasing already outdated military equipment from overseas manufacturers at over the top costs, but it appears won’t invest half a billion of our money supporting the development of a state of the art futuristic industry.
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Trump imposed tariffs on Australian exports into the U.S. last month; maybe we should be selling our common-wealth to the U.S. with export duties at two hundred percent markup on top of the producer’s sales price.
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Why leave our children with empty quarries due the the greed of overseas elites and their paid off Australian assets in government.
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What is better for our future generations, leaving a resource in the ground, or have it used to blow up neighbours, ourselves or enslaving our people?
Matt Canavan has been saying Australia has provided a $250m guarantee for some renewables project in India, I think it was also a US project but if it goes belly up Australia will cover the losses. This sounds like one of Chris Bowel’s deals. Australia is getting vultured like never before, at least with the Melbourne gold rush they got some buildings and infrastructure. Now we just get super-expensive wind turbines with blades that have to be replaced from new because they’re faulty and have to be taken down after 15 years. Globally, everyone thinks the ALP government is a joke and just there to be scammed. There is a luxury economy here that revolves around things like, lattes, Gucci handbags, overpriced EVs etc that is funded by debt originating in Swissyland. Ground zero of this false economic sector is Canberra. Look how they have mucked up tax now, to no useful effect. They are like mental patients running loose in the asylum.