It wasn’t that long ago that Australia had a thriving manufacturing industry.
 
But in 2021, our nation is well behind the pace among OECD nations when it comes to manufacturing to meet our own needs.
 
In fact, we are dead last, producing just 68 per cent of our own requirements.
 
Manufacturing represents 6 per cent of the nation’s total output — down from 30 per cent in the 1970s.
 
And under the current government we have lost 90,000 manufacturing jobs since 2013.
 
That’s not good enough.
 
Allowing our manufacturing sector to decline meant, for example, that when the coronavirus pandemic emerged we were unable to meet our own needs for face masks or hand sanitiser.
 
This will change under a Labor government.
 
We will focus on post-COVID reconstruction to re-energise Australian manufacturing, not just to meet our own needs but also to create good, secure jobs for Australians for decades to come.
 
That’s why at today’s Labor Party national conference I will announce that a Labor government will create a $15bn National Reconstruction Fund to revive Australian manufacturing.
 
The fund will partner with the private sector, including superannuation funds, to invest in projects and industries that will provide good, secure jobs.
 
It will use a combination of loans, equity injections, co-investment and lending guarantees to back in the endeavours of companies that see a future in making things in this country.
 
The National Reconstruction Fund will target key sectors including resources, food processing, heavy manufacturing, renewable energy and defence.
 
In resources, the focus will be value adding.
 
For example, Australia has large reserves of lithium, which will underpin the growth industry of the future — batteries.
 
But if we are smart, we will look beyond bulk lithium exports and aspire to making batteries and selling them to the world.
 
That is where the NRF comes in.
 
It is the same story in agriculture.
 
It is good that we export so much quality food. But if we focus on processing food and beverages here, we can extract the extra benefit of creating manufacturing jobs, particularly in regional areas that produce so many agricultural products.
 
The NRF will also back investment in renewable energy industries.
 
We know the world is shifting to renewables. While the current government continues to pretend this change is not happening, a Labor government would use the NRF to help develop new industries that capitalise on the shift in areas like production of solar panels, wind turbines and hydrogen electrolysers, innovative packaging and waste reduction.
 
The fund will also help a Labor government harness the power of government purchasing to grow existing industries.
 
For example, a boom in public transport projects around the nation means we will need thousands of new train carriages. Instead of buying them offshore, we should build those trains here in existing factories.
 
The NRF will back companies that want to be part of that supply chain.
 
Its existence will deliver the grunt to drive the National Rail Manufacturing plan I announced last year, just as it will support Labor’s Defence Industry Development Strategy announced at the same time.
 
The other task of the NRF will be to ensure Australia is able to meet its own needs when it comes to medical supplies.
 
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed our nation’s vulnerability.
 
We must restore our self-sufficiency to be better prepared for the next pandemic.
 
The National Reconstruction Fund will be run by an independent board just like the successful Clean Energy Finance Corporation which has deployed more than $7bn of its capital to support renewable and other clean energy projects, leveraging $2.50 of private investment for every dollar of its own investment.
 
Under current arrangements, private investment is not flowing quickly enough into innovation or new enterprise.
 
Instead, it flows into real estate or is returned to investors as higher dividends.
 
This means too many worthy manufacturing projects struggle to secure funding and never get off the ground, despite having clear potential to create well-paid jobs and diversify the economy.
 
Using the National Reconstruction Fund in combination with increased research and development and collaboration with industry, unions and state governments, a Labor government will secure a future made in Australia.
 
Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Australian Labor Party.
 
This opinion piece was first published in The Daily Telegraph and The West Australian on Tuesday, 30 March 2021.