Federal and state governments announce $2b bailout for Rio Tinto’s Boyne aluminium smelter
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-25/rio-tinto-boyne-aluminium-smelter-gets-government-bailout/106494232?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
24 Comments
Wtf. Why does Rio of all companies need a bail out?
It’s infuriating that tax-dodging behemoths like this get tax-funded subsidies to allow them to go back to tax-dodging.
Any tax-funded bailout should result in the assets becoming publicly owned.
Cool, so now we own a 2 billion dollar stake in it, right?
So tax payer kick in a couple of billion while share holders and corporate execs increase the margins.
Seems about right. /s just in case
[AFR article ](https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/rio-gets-2b-taxpayer-handout-to-turn-queensland-smelter-green-20260324-p5val6)has more details for those interested.
I’m generally pretty damn down on these kind of bailouts (they very rarely help in even the medium term, your stuck bankrolling a private for profit company with taxpayer money basically forever, and as for the local economy you would be better off spending that $2 billion directly on the workers of the plant, and letting ‘naturally’ successful companies emerge).
With that said, in the context of the governments, both state and federal being terrified on their own shadow and refusing to, at scale, invest in government owned renewable generation, if this is the political ‘cost’ to push the $7 billion investment that ‘nominally’ part of this deal (I will be keen to see some receipts on this), that’s something I supose I can live with.
It’s dumb as dogshit, don’t get me wrong. The utterly pathological need of every government in Australia to launder power generation through private ownership and markets, then have the gall to act surprised when power prices explode is disgusting, but that is a much larger issue that it is a longer political fight, and getting more renewables into the grid needs to happen sooner rather than latter.
Read the article ffs. It’s 2 billion to transition the plant to renewable energy.
Anyone know Rio’s net profit last year?
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FM, we need to nationalise any company that gets this type of bailout. If it is worth bailing out then we should own it.
Tell that to the roughly thousand odd staff/contractors at the now shuttered ALCOA plant in Kwinana WA, most of whom lost their jobs.
The ABC framing it as a ‘bailout’ is quite reductive.
Feds and QLD governments are basically contributing to converting the smelter to renewable energy and ensuring it keeps operating to at least 2040.
Aluminium smelters are very energy-intensive, taxpayers are going to benefit from lower energy costs and keeping strategic manufacturing onshore.
No. I refuse to pay for this while we have homeless on the street.
You cannot sit here and tell me it’s cheaper to bail out mega conglomerates than support poor people.
Money flows upward, give people money and we will spend it.
But capitalism.
It feels good to be able to support small, family owned businesses, who live and grow in their communities. I’m feeling warm and fuzzy knowing Mr. and Mrs.Tinto can continue their work.
Not for nothing, how’s the aged care sector looking? How’s Medicare going? I know teachers and paramedics are a state issue, but how are those sectors going?
Bail out… or using the Future Made In Australia production tax credits for their intended purpose (move Australia towards net zero carbon emissions). Which this deal intentionally does.
This is bad journalism IMO – it’s basically rage bait.
We want aluminium smelters to remain operational in Australia, for security, jobs, industry growth etc.
Aluminium smelters have very high power requirements.
Those power requirements are currently met by fossil fuels
This deal moves the smelter to renewable energy sources, and requires Rio Tinto to invest ~$7.5B into renewables in return for tax credits.
It’s a bailout, in the sense that all bauxite / alumina / aluminium facilities in Australia are absolutely struggling, or have already shut down. This is the government pushing Rio to keep Boyne open, whilst extracting 3x the amount of investment into renewables from Rio (who otherwise wouldn’t care – why would they, they are not an energy generation company).
Seems like a pretty smart deal to me.
Ah socialism for the capitalists! Love it
Fuck these corporate handouts. They want free money then make them work for it. Job seeker has KPIs why don’t corporate handouts?
What the fuck.
Rio Tinto doesn’t need more free money.
If the plant is no longer financially viable, let them close it and make sure they clean up the site.
This government needs an overhaul, stop just ‘going along with the flow’ when it comes to who runs out country, stop voting lib and lab, vote different or this BS will never stop. We need change
Why are we bailing out Rio when they are about to possibly make bank due to the Iran war? The largest aluminium smelter in the world is in Bahrain which is being bombed right now. Are they going to pay it back when they make super profits?
This company is majority owned by Blackrock and Vanguard, they have an insane amount of wealth, why the hell are we paying them 2 Billion dollars?!?! They have hundreds of billions already?!?
If its only 2b why arent they using their profit to fix it? Is profit after expenses and wouldn’t this be one?
Blackrock are a bunch of Cunts and Vanguard are no better