Parties vie for lithium battery votes

The West Australian reports Federal Labor says it wants to "supercharge" Australia's involvement in the lithium-ion battery sector and is promising to back WA with research dollars and access to infrastructure and manufacturing funds worth billions to do so, if it wins government.

A report by Australia's chief resources economist released yesterday said Australia could reap "hundreds of billions" from an explosion in the use of lithium batteries, saying that all the materials required to make them could be found in WA.

Shadow resources minister Jason Clare told the paper a Federal Labor government would make downstream processing of battery metals mined in Australia a policy pr...