Scott Morrison to unveil plan to create 300,000 jobs by 2030
Scott Morrison has unveiled a plan to spend $1.5bn to create 300,000 jobs within 10 years, aiming at six specific areas.
SA News
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Three hundred thousand new jobs will be created by 2030 in a $1.5bn road map to transform Australian manufacturing in the wake of COVID-19.
Scott Morrison has unveiled the road map in a major speech on Thursday ahead of next week’s federal budget, as reported by The Advertiser.
It’s expected to turbocharge South Australia’s manufacturing renaissance after Holden’s departure in 2017.
It will do this by targeting space and defence, which are named as two of the nation’s top priorities, among six key sectors identified as Australia’s lucrative manufacturing industries of the future.
Recycling and clean energy, medical products, food and beverage manufacturing and mining technology have been named as other key sectors.
Mr Morrison described the budget as “one of the most important since the Second World War”.
It will be central to Australia’s recovery from the pandemic, which will hit the global economy “45 times greater than the Global Financial Crisis”, the Prime Minister said.
“We make things in Australia. We do it well. We need to keep making things in Australia – and with this strategy, we will,” Mr Morrison said the a speech to the National Press Club.
At the strategy’s centrepiece will be a $1.3bn “modern manufacturing initiative”, which will inject about $80m into each priority sector to create large-scale production hubs or R&D facilities for a range of businesses and other organisations – similar to Adelaide’s Lot Fourteen.
The nation will target “high-value areas of manufacturing where Australia has either established competitive strength or emerging priorities” in the 10-year strategy, inspired by manufacturing powerhouses such as Singapore, Germany and Canada.
“This will require our manufacturing sector to be even more productive and highly skilled, to be more collaborative, at the leading edge of R&D, commercialisation and technology adoption (and) to be more outward-looking in searching relentlessly for footholds in global markets,” Mr Morrison said.
Building the defence sector will enable Australian companies to provide “sophisticated defence equipment and supplies” to the Australian Defence Force and global supply chains, while the space sector is “estimated to reach $1 trillion globally by 2040”.
The Federal Government will invest in the key sectors in partnership with the states and the private sector. Road maps for each sector will be finalised by April to set clear goals for jobs, R&D and investment for the next two, five and 10 years.
Grants will also be available to help companies turn research into products and to secure work in local and global supply chains.
A separate $107.2m initiative will be launched to identify and tackle weaknesses in Australia’s critical supply chains exposed by COVID-19.
And $52.8m will be made available for grants of between $100,000 and $1m for up to 150 businesses to upgrade their technology or machinery.
Industry Minister Karen Andrews said the plan would create 80,000 direct skilled and unskilled manufacturing jobs by 2030 in a “conservative estimate”, and about 300,000 total direct and indirect jobs.
“Lot Fourteen is a really good example of what we are trying to achieve, which is business interaction and collaboration,” she said.
“The key areas for SA are defence, where there’s already significant work being done with defence industry manufacturing, and of course the space sector and quite frankly in many instances they go hand-in-hand.”
Ready to launch for new frontiers
South Australia’s transformation into a space and defence manufacturing hub is set to be turbocharged under Scott Morrison’s new 10-year plan.
The state’s manufacturing companies were already gearing up for a jobs bonanza from the multibillion-dollar future frigates and submarines, set to be built at Port Adelaide.
But the Prime Minister’s road map to make Australia a manufacturing powerhouse in six key areas, including space and defence, will ensure a pipeline of government and private investment and a renewed focus on training the necessary workforce.
It will boost the opportunities for companies such as Adelaide-based Axiom, which has already pivoted from making car parts for Holdens to working on F-35 fighter jets and projects in the aerospace sector.
General manager Craig Maynard said the disruption of global supply chains during the COVID-19 crisis had put a renewed focus on Australian manufacturing.
“I think we can certainly have huge jobs growth in manufacturing and, even if we’re talking hi-tech manufacturing (with) robots and automation, we still need those skilled people to be able to manage and run production,” he said.
“There’s certainly great opportunities for increased growth and we’re seeing that with the amount of apprentices not only us but other companies in the industry are putting on.”
Axiom’s workforce has already doubled to 85 since automotive manufacturing ended in SA in 2017.
Mr Maynard expected to employ more staff and apprentices as the mega shipbuilding projects get underway in the next two years. He said training would be key to ensure SA had the workforce.