PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli has sought to explain Pakatan Harapan’s change in stance on Australian rare earths mining firm Lynas Corporation continuing its operations in Malaysia.

Rafizi said PH had opposed Lynas’s presence in the past as Malaysia had been made a dumping ground for waste by-products.

The company would bring in raw materials from Australia to be processed here, with the processed material sent back and waste by-products kept in Malaysia, he said.

We became a dumping ground and there was little added value from Lynas’s investment here,

 he said in the latest episode of his Yang Bakar Menteri podcast.

Before PH came to power as the federal government, there was no mineral mapping on the potential of rare earths nor any demand for the minerals.

At that time, did we want a foreign country to send hazardous minerals to Malaysia and turn (the country) into a dumping ground?

 he said. 

So when PH took over the government, we thought about how to ensure the country could gain worthwhile returns (from Lynas), and it was also around that time that the mineral mapping was being carried out,

 he said.

He was responding to Eric See-To, who questioned PH’s change in stance from the time Najib Razak was in power, when PH as the opposition party had claimed that Lynas’s operations were dangerous.

Rafizi said the PH government in 2019 made the controversial decision to allow Lynas to continue its operations in Malaysia. Its operating licence was renewed again in October last year, allowing the company to continue importing and processing rare earths until March 2026.

However, the extension hinges on Lynas’s compliance with ensuring that the thorium radioactive content in waste residue remains below a set threshold.

In June, science, technology and innovation minister Chang Lih Kang said "the construction of Lynas’s permanent disposal facility was expected to be completed by the end of this year."