Australia’s critical minerals’ industry has hailed $13.7 billion in budget tax credits at the same time as the Coalition has vowed to block the policy claiming it will deliver “billions in handouts to billionaires”.

The credits, flagged by The Australian Financial Review on the eve of the budget and aimed at boosting  downstream processing of critical minerals, won’t kick in until 2027 as the government fine-tunes the policy and legislates changes to the tax system.