A future made in Australia

An Albanese Labor Government will rebuild the nation’s manufacturing industry with a comprehensive plan to create jobs, boost vital skills, bring industry expertise back onshore and supercharge national productivity.

A Future Made in Australia ­– Labor’s blueprint for local manufacturing jobs and skills – includes:

• A National Rail Manufacturing Plan to see more trains built in Australia by local workers and ensure every dollar of federal funding spent on rail projects boosts local jobs and industry;
• A Defence Industry Development Strategy to leverage our $270 billion investment pipeline, develop sovereign industrial and research capabilities and build skills and expertise within the Australian workforce; and
• An Australian Skills Guarantee to give apprentices, trainees and cadets a foot in the door when it comes to work on major Commonwealth projects.

This will build on the jobs that will flow from Labor’s plans for an Australian Centre for Disease Control and a social housing repair program to get tradies back on the tools.

Labor’s National Rail Manufacturing Plan will undertake a national audit of passenger train capacity and condition, develop our rail procurement and manufacturing strategy, assess how we can grow jobs, bolster research and development and collaborate with innovation initiatives and organisations.

Importantly, it will reinstate the important role of the Rail Supplier Advocate cut by the Liberals in 2013 – to help small and medium-sized businesses identify export opportunities and get a foot in the door with government purchasing bodies.

The Defence Industry Development Strategy will put Australian industry, workers and security first with a framework to maximise and publicly disclose local content for all major defence material procurements and local defence contracts.

Finally, an Australian Skills Guarantee will ensure that one in 10 jobs on major federally funded infrastructure projects are given to apprentices, trainees or cadets.

More information

The National Reconstruction Fund is the first step in Labor’s plan to rebuild Australia’s industrial base.

Australia has suffered nearly a decade of policy drift since the Liberal’s goaded the car industry to leave. We rank dead last in the OECD when it comes to manufacturing self-sufficiency.

We need to revive our ability to make world-class products and, in the process, create secure well-paid jobs for Australians.

The National Reconstruction Fund provides a crucial financing vehicle to specifically drive investment in projects that will build prosperity across the country, broadening our industrial base and boosting regional economic development.

The $15 billion in capital provided through the National Reconstruction Fund will support projects that create secure well-paid jobs, drive regional development, and invest in our national sovereign capability, broadening and diversifying Australia’s economy.

Through the National Reconstruction Fund, Labor will partner with businesses to unlock further potential private investment of more than $30 billion¹. Like the CEFC, the Fund would operate in a way that is expected to make a return to the budget bottom line.

This investment will play to our strengths supporting new and emerging industries, transitioning existing industries to net zero emissions and by making it easier for people to commercialise innovation and technology.

The National Reconstruction Fund will be legislated to demonstrate our commitment to delivering a $15 billion capital injection into Australia’s prosperity giving business certainty for the life of projects.

The mission of the National Reconstruction Fund is to:

• create secure well-paid jobs
• build on our national strengths
• diversify Australia’s industrial base
• develop our national sovereign capability
• drive regional economic diversification and development

The National Reconstruction Fund would be administered by an independent board with government setting its mandate to drive investment in key sectors focusing on value adding and capability development to leverage Australia’s natural and competitive strengths including:

• Value add in resources. Expand our mining science technology, ensure a greater share of the raw materials we extract are processed here, for example, high purity alumina from red mud in bauxite processing or lithium processing for batteries.
• Value add in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. Ensure we unlock potential and value add to our raw materials in sectors like food processing, and textiles, clothing and footwear manufacturing.
• Transport. Develop our capabilities in car, train and shipbuilding supply chains.
• Medical science. Fulfil our potential, given our world leading research, in providing essential supplies such as medical devices, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medicines and vaccines.
• Renewables and low emission technologies. Pursue commercial opportunities from; components for wind turbines; production of batteries and solar panels; new livestock feed to reducing methane emissions modernising steel and aluminium; hydrogen electrolysers, and innovative packaging solutions for waste reduction.
• Defence capability. maximise our requirements being sourced from Australian suppliers employing Australian workers, whether they be technology, infrastructure or skills, complimenting Labor’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.
• Enabling capabilities. Supporting key enabling capabilities across engineering, data science, software development including FinTech, EdTech, AI and robotics.

National reconstruction must include a focus on regional development. Ensuring our regions are able to sustain secure well-paid jobs and building are broader industrial base in key areas is a focus of the National Reconstruction Fund.

Labor’s national reconstruction agenda will include wide-ranging consultation with communities, businesses and unions on how we build a more prosperous Australia.

Projects eligible for the National Reconstruction Fund will also benefit from Labor’s National Rail Manufacturing Plan, the Defence Industry Development Strategy and Rewiring the Nation which prioritise domestic procurement.

In accordance with Labor’s Secure Australian Jobs Plan, the Fund will only enter into financial arrangements with businesses and organisations that are providers of secure jobs.

_{1. The CEFC has been able to leverage its funds to drive 2.5 times the investment. Similar results could see the Fund unlock over $30 billion of investment.}