The Morrison government is at loggerheads with Australia’s richest man over the future of economy-defining export industries, with resources minister Keith Pitt joining the Prime Minister in declaring coal will prosper for decades to come after Andrew Forrest challenged the nation to move on and embrace green hydrogen and steel.

The government dug its heel in on the future of the coal industry after Mr Forrest, the chairman of Forestecue Metals group, said in the test of his first Boyer lecture that Australia needed to develop its own big steel-making industry using the nation’s vast iron ore resources and green technologies such as renewable energy and hydrogen.