This video might explain why Australia hasn't done anything with Thorium, since the US has a lot of say in our defence matters.
Jim Kennedy explains how mining rare earth metals will typically produce large amounts of Thorium as a by product, simply because it's so common. The problem is that Thorium and Uranium are lumped together in US regulations as "source materials" and are carefully controlled. This eventually led to the winding down of the rare earth industry in the US and allowed China to corner the market.
The speaker goes on to talk about the extreme difficulty that he and others had in trying to get new legislation passed in the US, and eventually failed.
At 15:30 he mentions China's stated intention to "control the commercial development of this (Thorium energy technology) and it's global deployment. They're going to own it all."
He also notes that near 80% of US military assets are deployed in regions sourcing conventional energy and they would no longer be needed. (IMO, I don't think the MIC would appreciate that very much LOL.)
At 20:30 he says when talking about the potential low cost of Thorium reactors, "Who wants a cheaper reactor. Think about that." I think I know what he means.
