A storm of criticism no less:
Jim Chalmers’ hand-picked chair of the Productivity Commission has warned Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan would divert investment from more productive parts of the economy and lead to higher-than-necessary costs for taxpayers.
Danielle Wood – the former Grattan Institute chief executive who the Treasurer tasked with shifting the commission’s focus towards the energy transition – said Anthony Albanese’s proposed subsidies for the low-emissions manufacturing sector would “take jobs and capital investments from elsewhere in the economy where they could generate higher value”.
“In a period of tight labour markets, and many areas of growing future demand for labour, this compounds the costs of industry support,” Ms Wood said, in her first major intervention on government policy since being appointed last year.
The oligarchs poured scorn on it, too:
The Albanese government should keep its hands off the “steering wheel” of business, invest in research and development rather than copying other nation’s competitive sectors, and avoid the dead weight of creating subsidy-reliant industries, says Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable.
In an interview in which she “cautiously” backed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s push to assert a new vision of sovereign manufacturing, Ms Constable warned that “the last thing we want is another car industry”.
“Then we find out that those industries cannot compete on their own, that they have to be subsidised forever, and that taxpayers foot the bill for decades.
The sheer bloody-mindedness of the mining sector has to be admired sometimes. It is the primary driver of industrial hollowing out and won’t release the garrot one iota.
But I have to agree, which begs the question: how did Albo get it so wrong that an old industrial campaigner like me is in alignment with the likes of Tania Constable?
Albo’s ambition for industry is as paltry as his policymaking.
Throwing a few bob at green energy supply chains is hardly reviving manufacturing. And why make consumers pay more for the energy transition than they should? They have already paid enough!
This is especially true since we have collapsing industries around gas that could be immediately stabilised with lower energy input costs, accelerating decarbonisation and sovereign capacity.
Local gas prices are still far too high to support ongoing petrochemicals and other value-added industries:
Yet, lowering the gas price permanently by lowering the price cap would stabilise energy transition politics, boost renewables investment, make life cheaper for households, and do more for manufacturing than Albo’s giveaways.
The problem is that it doesn’t come with a big, green thing to wave around at the next election.
So, instead, we will have more Alboflation to pay for his campaign.
