cont:

Assistant Minister for Social Services Ged Kearney’s partner, Leigh Hubbard, is a former union boss of the Victorian Trades Hall Council and has investments in seven companies in the minerals industry. Nationals MP Anne Webster’s husband, Mildura GP Philip Webster, has four holdings. New Labor MPs Gordon Reid and Tom French have declared two holdings apiece, with one of French’s being through his partner.

A spokesperson for Kearney said she has “declared all her, and her spouses’, interests appropriately in accordance with the rules”. Crikey does not suggest that any politician used inside information to guide their investments.

The most popular stock with politicians and their families is Lynas Rare Earths, the leading producer of rare earths outside China. It has one of the world’s biggest rare-earth deposits in Western Australia, and the world’s largest rare-earth processing plant in Malaysia.

Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, is a minority shareholder in the company with a reported stake of 8.2%, or $430 million, as of April this year. While Rinehart likes to rail against government interference in the economy, she won’t be upset about the $13 billion minerals deal or previous government subsidies and defence contracts for Lynas.

Rinehart’s good friend Barnaby Joyce, whose child has held shares in Lynas since 2019, is probably cock-a-hoop too, as would other long-term investors, such as Labor MP Meryl Swanson. Although Lynas’s share price was down 7.5% yesterday following news of the deal, the stock is up 144% over the past year and has well outperformed the ASX 200. 

Another rare-earths miner likely to benefit from the US-Australia deal is Iluka Resources, which Labor MP Zaneta Mascarenhas and Ged Kearney’s partner own shares in. Iluka has been on the public teat for some time, with the federal government providing the company with a $1.25 billion non-recourse loan in 2022 to develop a rare-earths refinery in WA. The government topped up the loan by $400 million in late 2024.


Iluka’s share price was down slightly yesterday, but it’s up 47.75% so far this year.

Alcoa Corporation, which Labor MP Libby Coker’s husband, Andrew Hugh Corrie-Smith, has invested in since 2019, saw an immediate boost in its share price yesterday — about 7% — after the company’s planned gallium refinery in WA was designated a priority project under the deal, with US and Australian government funding of more than A$300 million. 

Meanwhile, Latrobe Magnesium saw its share price rocket 15.4% yesterday on news that, as part of the deal, the US government’s Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is considering providing a loan of up to A$200 million for the company’s planned magnesium extract project in Victoria.

That must please Ged Kearney’s partner Leigh Hubbard, who has only seen the share price decline since investing in 2022. Hubbard would also be happy to see another of his holdings, Northern Minerals, may receive an EXIM loan of up to A$352 million for the company’s heavy rare-earth project in WA.

What a time to be a shareholder.

Jasin wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2025 at 2:58pm:



The Voice says you can't do insider trading on our land.

Carl D wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2025 at 4:04pm:



It's very difficult to separate out say a single metal that you want from
ore that has been ground up into powder and say 20 other different metals
all dissolved in strong acid.
I suppose you have to neutralise the acid and then dump
the liquid waste into the environment?

That's why China has done it - no one else wants
to deal with the pollution.