‘Pick winners’ to guard against Chinese threat, says Andrew Hastie

Andrew Hastie says strategic protectionism is needed to build a new manufacturing industry beyond the range of Chinese missiles.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie says the nation must “pick winners” and back them with taxpayers’ funds to build a manufacturing industry for Australia and allies, beyond the range of Chinese missiles.

Delivering the inaugural Jim Molan Oration on Thursday night, the former SAS captain whom some believe could be a future Liberal leader, called for a new era of strategic protectionism, levering off Australia’s remoteness and rich resources.

He said Australia had both a “liberty of distance” and a “liberty of abundance” that presented unique opportunities for the nation and its partners in the race to secure key supply chains.

A decade after Joe Hockey refused to continue subsidising the automotive industry, prompting the exit of the nation’s car makers, Mr Hastie declared: “governments need to be involved and support industry.”

He said the “tyranny of distance” that fuelled the demise of Australia’s car industry was now a strategic advantage.

“In our present time, our geography is a strength; something to be leveraged,” Mr Hastie said.

He said the rise of China and Russia posed “the greatest threat to our security in a generation”, but Australia could push back by building national resilience – something the Liberal senator and former major general Molan had long advocated before his death from cancer in January.

He said Australia’s remoteness, which had diminished the nation’s productivity, was now “a strength, something to be leveraged”.

“Australia sits at the edge of Chinese force projection, and so our geography and remoteness make us a place where partners can diversify their manufacturing and supply chains,” he said.

“If globalisation led to the offshoring of Australian manufacturing, then the new geopolitical disorder can bring it back home.”

Australia’s abundance of critical minerals, iron ore and energy resources offered key industrial inputs to the West and its partners as theory sought to overcome China’s “long shadow over the supply chain”, he said.

Mr Hastie said Australia could not continue with “business as usual”, allowing the market to “take care of it”.

“Jim’s grave assessment is that Australia has become weak. So how do we now play to our strengths?” he told an audience of Senator Molan’s family and friends at Queanbeyan’s Royal Hotel.

“Even Adam Smith, who has been unfairly misrepresented by politicians over the years, conceded that the government has a role in the economy on the grounds of national security. As he put in his Wealth of Nations: ‘defence is much more important than opulence’.”

Mr Hastie pointed to the US, UK, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea as nations that had built thriving industries “because their governments have supported them through different incentives and direct support”.

“They pick winners, and work closely with business and industry. And they aren’t squeamish about it. It’s a reality of the world we live in. We need to wake up to it,” he said.

Mr Hastie said AUKUS presented a clear opportunity to rebuild sovereign manufacturing, underpinned by its advantages in geography and resources.

“Our need for a reborn Australian manufacturing sector is now vital. Our sovereignty depends upon it. Our allies and partners depend on it,” he said.