What’s the point of Anthony Albanese’s flagship Future Made in Australia policy?

Anthony Albanese in Brisbane. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

Labor will legislate its flagship Made in Australia agenda later this year, with Anthony Albanese promoting a major recasting of industry policy that will greatly expand the role played by government.

But neither Albanese nor his Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has adequately explained what new measures the Future Made in Australia Act will include or why it is needed to achieve the grand transformation being flagged.

There is no doubt this bill is intended to represent a major break with the economic orthodoxy of the past three decades, as Albanese says it is essential for the nation to remain competitive in a world transformed by the convergence of national security with economic security.

But it is also incumbent on the government to explain its legislation once it has been publicly announced – including what new measures are being proposed and why they are needed. Albanese is failing this test.

As a result, he has attracted fierce criticism from economists and triggered a contentious national debate about government support for industry and a return to protectionism despite no new policy detail being presented. This works against his own political interests.

At the moment, the public does not know what the government’s flagship legislation is about, what it will do or which minister will be responsible for administering it – a politically untenable situation.

The sense of confusion and uncertainty is already undermining what Albanese has clearly presented as the key theme for the May budget and guiding economic philosophy for a second Labor term in power.

The new policy direction has been swiftly dismissed as a “fool’s errand” by former Productivity Commission chair Gary Banks and the Coalition has accused Labor of “picking winners” and “throwing money around” while household budgets are squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis.

The details of this bill – the legislative centrepiece of Labor’s political agenda – need to be swiftly sketched out and provided no later than the May budget or the Future Made in Australia Act will risk being viewed as an exercise in political marketing.

Some government sources have likened the Act to an “umbrella” better able to co-ordinate the suite of already existing funds aimed at channelling support where it is needed across the economy.

These include the $15bn National Reconstruction Fund aimed at growing Australia’s industrial capabilities, the $20bn Rewiring the Nation Corporation geared towards modernising the electricity grid and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, established to ease the pathway to net zero by 2050.

These bodies are already operating and have their own investment mandates and guidelines. There must be relevant questions about whether a new “umbrella” is needed or if it would simply represent another layer of bureaucracy.

In his address to the Queensland Media Club in Brisbane on April 11 – one of the most important speeches of his prime ministership – Albanese said the nation needed 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. “I announce that this year our government will create the Future Made in Australia Act. We will bring together in a comprehensive and co-ordinated way a whole package of new and existing initiatives.”

To end the confusion, the government must more clearly explain its legislation. It must outline how the new Act will bring together these “new and existing initiatives”, and spell out what they are.

It is a disservice to the nation to be engaged in a new and divisive debate about the future of economic policy unanchored from the key facts and details relating to proposed government legislation.