Anthony Albanese announces $500m investment into clean energy manufacturing jobs
The Prime Minister has announced a crucial investment package during a pre-election speech, but not before he took a few healthy swipes at the opposition.
Anthony Albanese has announced a further $500m for the Future Made in Australia Fund, this time to drive new jobs in clean energy manufacturing.
In a speech to the Whitlam dinner on Friday night, the Prime Minister said the package was designed to support communities across the country that “grow and thrive” around steelmaking and aluminium processing industries.
He described the industries as “vital” to both Australia’s economic and national security and said the project would start with window tower fabrication.
“Every new wind tower needs hundreds of tonnes of steel. Why should that steel come from anywhere but here?” Mr Albanese said.
The federal government will work to set new local content requirement targets for state and territory governments to buy content from local manufacturers, he added.
The $1.7b Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund, administered by ARENA, was announced as part of the wider Future Made in Australia package in last year’s federal budget.
The package aims to support Australia’s transition to a net zero economy by investing in areas such as skill and training, renewable energy, natural resources and industrial innovation.
“We will put Australian steel in every link of the supply chain. And we will help Australian workers benefit in every part of the country,” Mr Albanese said.
On Thursday, another $500m federal package was earmarked to support the long-term transition of Whyalla steelworks, which was forced into administration by the South Australian state government earlier this week.
The rescue fund could save some 3100 direct and indirect jobs that depend on the key smelter, which produces 75 per cent of Australia’s structural steel.
However, the federal government’s renewed focus on clean energy and green steel is not without its critics.
Mr Albanese was heckled earlier this month by anti-offshore wind farm campaigners over a contentious clean energy development proposal in the Illawarra.
During a visit to a BlueScope Steelworks centre in Wollongong, members of the group told the prime minister to “go home” and branded his claims that Labor supported blue collar jobs as “another lie.”
Mr Albanese’s address to the Whitlam dinner, honouring Labor hero Gough Whitlam, also served as a pre-election speech.
The Prime Minister said the coming election would be the difference between “cleaning up the mess of the decade of a Coalition government or seizing the opportunities of the next decade.”
He took a swipe at the Liberal Party for pushing a historically “vicious ideology” on key issues like healthcare and migration.
“At this election we are up against that same plan, being pushed by the same people,” Mr Albanese said.
“Because Peter Dutton wasn’t a bit player or a bystander in the decade the Liberals spent in power. He was a senior cabinet minister, right the way through.
“He made the mess. He dug the hole. He put bulk-billing in free fall and broke the migration system.
“He spent 10 years creating the problems and has spent the last three years opposing the solutions.”
Originally published as Anthony Albanese announces $500m investment into clean energy manufacturing jobs
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