Why are we doing it?

Unlocking Australia’s mineral, energy, and groundwater resource potential is essential to drive economic growth, job creation, and ongoing infrastructure and community development.

• In 2020–21, Australia’s agricultural sector accounted for 1.9% of GDP and employed around 300,000 Australians, while the minerals and energy sectors accounted for 10% of Australia’s GDP, $310 billion of exports, and employed around a quarter of a million Australians.  
• It is vital we maintain these sectors to secure our energy, water and primary production needs, and provide the minerals necessary for a low-emissions, high-tech future.
• Over 80% of Australia is underexplored, with potential minerals, groundwater and energy resources hidden beneath the surface.
• Australia's current resource prosperity comes from discoveries and developments made decades ago in geologically well-known and well-explored areas. It can take 5–10 (or more) years for a new resource to go from discovery to development.

Geoscience Australia plays an important role by developing pre-competitive geoscience data to technically de-risk underexplored ‘greenfield’ areas, which encourages exploration investment and helps provide certainty and security for the minerals, energy and agriculture sectors. 

Investment in exploration—supporting our future

Water

Groundwater is a critical intergenerational resource for Australia, providing drinking water to millions of people in cities, towns and small communities, supporting billions of dollars of economic activity each year and sustaining our natural environment. It is crucial for Australian industries, particularly the agriculture industry.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent, making water use and management a key challenge. Reliable water resources are critical for successful and healthy Australian communities, especially in remote areas. Most of the freshwater used across northern Australia comes from groundwater rather than from surface water sources.

In the last few decades, we have more than doubled our groundwater use. Today, groundwater accounts for around one third of Australia’s total water consumption. This need is only going to increase over time as we aim to build our industries, particularly in rural and remote Australia.

The Exploring for the Future program seeks to improve management of this vital resource to support future water security across the country.

Energy

Energy–specifically, access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy—will be an ongoing need as we seek to warm or cool our homes, fuel our industries, and transition to a lower carbon economy. In future we will be supported by lower emissions energy sources, like natural gas, to balance energy demand and supply.

By 2029 it is expected that an additional 3 million homes will need to be powered by gas. Australia is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas (LNG), and the resource is one of our most significant export commodities. Australia is also embarking on a journey to become a major exporter of hydrogen by 2030.

To support the transition to lower carbon emissions and renewable energy, the program seeks to improve the supply of gas in the immediate term and kick start the hydrogen economy while also securing supplies of liquid fuel.

Minerals

Minerals, including critical minerals, are vital to Australia’s advanced manufacturing and energy sectors. For example, a single wind turbine requires 3–4 tonnes of copper. The batteries that store the energy generated by that turbine are built with lithium and cobalt. Many devices we rely on every day, including the one you are using right now, consist of more than 20 metals. Australia can produce these materials to support our own domestic manufacturing sectors and continue to build our export market.