A multi-billion dollar manufacturing boost will set up Australia’s economy for decades, the prime minister says.

As debate continued in federal parliament on the government’s signature Future Made in Australia policy, Anthony Albanese said it would be the catalyst for investment not only at home but in overseas markets.

The strategy will spend more than $22 billion over 10 years and aims to safeguard Australian control over the resources and manufacturing sectors.

As part of the plan, the government will aim to invest in emerging industries such as parts of the renewable energy sector as nations shift towards net-zero.

“We can choose to carry on as we are, to stay in our lane and be satisfied with our lot and watch the world move past us, or we can actually move forward,” Mr Albanese told parliament on Wednesday.

“This is the decisive decade for our nation’s future. We are in our moment right now, and we must seize it.”

Projects funded under the strategy would be determined by a national interest framework, as well as ensure jobs would be safe and well paid.

The manufacturing strategy formed the centrepiece of the government’s federal budget handed down in May.

Mr Albanese said as other nations moved towards net-zero economies, Australia had the opportunity to be a leading player in the transition.

“These countries will need more clean energy, more solar power, more wind power, more batteries and storage and more of the resources, critical minerals and rare earths that all this technology depends on,” he said.

“The world needs what Australia has. That presents our nation with a choice that will define the future of our economy.”

The coalition is set to oppose the manufacturing plan, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor describing the scheme as pork barrelling.

“The more we learn about this plan, the more it simply doesn’t stack up,” he said.

“It’s a plan for more government, not more business investment. It’s a plan for more inflation at a time when Labor is already making its homegrown inflation worse.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt called the legislation an “election slush fund for more coal and gas”, urging the government to guarantee the measures won’t be used to finance fossil fuel projects.

“There’s nothing in this legislation that rules out public money going to more coal and gas or to the infrastructure that supports it,” he said.

The Greens are yet to commit to a formal position on the fund, but will decide after a parliamentary inquiry into the legislation.

Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said the Future Made in Australia laws were essential to the future of the economy.

“These new industries provide an opportunity to build a new economic foundation for Australia that can ultimately substitute declining international demand for and revenues from, fossil fuels,” he said.

 

Andrew Brown
(Australian Associated Press)