Future Made in Australia: Policies on job growth just made for a fight

The Coalition is flagging an election fight on how to grow Australia’s manufacturing sector, with Peter Dutton rejecting Labor’s plan to underwrite cherrypicked domestic projects.

Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, at the Queensland Media Club in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: AAP

The Coalition is flagging an election fight on how to grow the manufacturing sector, with Peter Dutton rejecting Labor’s plan to underwrite cherrypicked domestic projects in what has been labelled “the biggest policy shift in a lifetime”.

Anthony Albanese on Thursday sought to hose down claims his Future Made in Australia Act was a return to the “old protectionism” of last century, as business leaders and economists raised alarm with the risks posed by an initiative being framed as Australia’s answer to the US Inflation Reduction Act. 

The Prime Minister, seeking to win over blue-collar voters with manufacturing subsidies, said the Future Made in Australia Act would create well-paid jobs in an economy transitioning from coal and gas towards renewables.

The Opposition Leader said manufacturing jobs would also be a key part of the Coalition’s agenda, but declared his plan would be focused around creating a better environment for business rather than picking winners.

Mr Dutton signalled the Coalition’s manufacturing policy would be centred on a broader economic narrative that included reducing energy prices, cutting red tape and reforming the industrial relations sector.

“We know that businesses just can’t afford to pay their energy bills, and small and big businesses are no different to family households at the moment because they’ve seen massive increases in their power prices under this government,” he said.

“If you look at manufacturing in Australia now, it’s not made in Australia because it’s going broke. It’s going broke under the Labor government because of their energy costs, because of their industrial relations impost, and this government continues to do everything to please the union bosses, but it’s making it harder for the workers.”

Mr Albanese declared direct government intervention was needed to back key sectors – in a shift away from the political consensus of the past 40 years. He said Labor was willing to “break with old orthodoxies and pull new levers to advance the national interest”.

“We have to think differently about what government can – and must – do to work alongside the private sector to grow the economy,” he said.

Mr Albanese said states such as Queensland and Western Australia – where Labor governments have suffered a decline in support ahead of a federal election due by May 2025 – particularly stood to benefit from the initiative.

“What we’ll see is a great many more jobs grow in the future and a great deal more security as well for existing processes like metal manufacturing, be it aluminium or steel,” he said.

He was not prescriptive about how the act would operate and ­instead said there was “a suite of measures that we’re giving consideration to”.

However, Mr Albanese did point to the closure of electric-­vehicle charging-station maker, Tritium, this month as a “lost opportunity”, the likes of which he hoped to prevent.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor said Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan was inflationary and that similar measures in the US had not worked.

“When you’ve got a cost-of-­living crisis, an inflation crisis, and governments spend up big, it makes the situation worse,” he told Sky News.

Fellow Coalition frontbencher, James Paterson, said he was “deeply sceptical” about the merits of centrally planning the economy to try to make it competitive and that Australia would not be able to “deploy anywhere near the level of subsidies that our major competitors can”.

While Mr Albanese admitted Australia could not go dollar for dollar with the US Inflation Reduction Act, he said the country could “absolutely compete for international investment when it comes to our capacity to produce outcomes”.

Unions and climate groups welcomed the act, which they said would set Australia on a competitive path with countries such as the US, the UK, Canada and Japan, which had all made public investments in the renewable manufacturing industries.

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union national secretary Steve Murphy said: “This is the biggest policy shift we’ve seen in our lifetime. A modern industrial policy can put people and communities affected by changing export demand for fossil fuels at the head of the pack for new jobs, projects and opportunities.”

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said the act would be ­“nation-building” and ensure Australia could compete in the “global race” to a clean energy future.

Greens regional development spokeswoman Penny Allman-Payne said shying away from market intervention and leaving decisions about energy in the hands of corporations was “precisely why we’re facing a global climate crisis”.

“The renewable transition needs to be government-led, with full and transparent community engagement, including the free, prior and informed consent of traditional owners, and protections for workers,” Senator Allman-Payne said.