Labor offers new spin on climate change crisis: jobs and exports

Labor leader Anthony Albanese is set to reshape his party’s policy arguments for greater efforts to limit climate change and present innovation as the hope of the economy.

Anthony Albanese tonight will strongly urge Australians to welcome measures combating climate change as a source of jobs and exports, not as a drain on finances and employment.

The Opposition Leader, in the first of a series of so-called headland speeches, will reshape Labor’s policy arguments for greater efforts to limit climate change and present innovation as the hope of the economy.

“The world is decarbonizing,” he will say in Perth tonight, according to a speech extract distributed by his office.

“With the right planning and vision, Australia can not only continue to be an energy exporting superpower, we can also enjoy a new manufacturing boom.

“This means jobs.”

In the May 18 election campaign the then Labor leader Bill Shorten struggled to sell voters the party’s policy because he was unable to say how much it would cost business and taxpayers.

Further, Labor was punished in electorates linked to the coal industry, particularly in Queensland, by voters who saw climate change policy strangling work opportunities.

Mr Albanese wants to address the positive of a policy as part of his intention to nominate job creation as Labor’s priority.

It will be his first proposal of broad policy since the election, and just before the release early next month of an internal report on the ALP campaign.

And he will reject the standard political warning that workers fear innovation because they see that as code for them being replaced by new technology.

“We need to shape our changing economy so it serves the Australian people, not the other way around,” he will say in Perth tonight, according to a speech extract distributed by his office.

“Not yesterday’s economy. Tomorrow’s economy.

“When it comes to building that economy, technology and innovation are our allies. They are key to boosting productivity.”

Mr Albanese will spotlight the potential for hydrogen power as an energy source which could be exported to our major trading partners including Japan and South Korea.

He will argue that innovation which boosts productivity would ensure our economy could fund a “a proper, fair” welfare safety net, a cleaner environment, education and health.

He will say, “Working towards a low-carbon future provides the opportunity to revitalise the Australian manufacturing sector. Opportunities that are all about jobs.

“Yet our current policy settings barely acknowledge climate change, let alone seek to exploit the opportunities that, over time, can come with the global shift to renewables.

“In the century that’s before us, the nations that will transform into manufacturing powerhouses are those that can harness the cheapest renewable energy resources.”

And Mr Albanese will nominate the mineral that could be the hope of the economy: lithium, a prime element for the growing battery technology.

“Right here in WA, we are seeing the emergence of an industry adding upstream value to a resource – creating new processing and manufacturing industries and, crucially, creating regional and metropolitan jobs,” he will say.

“As electric vehicles, energy storage systems and smart devices become more

mainstream, the global demand for lithium batteries will explode.”