The $1.5 billion roadmap for industry rolled out by the Prime Minister during his pre-budget address at the Press Club on Thursday is apparently nothing less than an attempt to reconstruct a manufacturing sector that had been allowed to fall into disrepair even before the pandemic, and to make it future proof.
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Mr Morrison said as much himself: "too often in the past industry policy has ignored.... foundational elements [such as affordable and reliable energy, tax policy, industrial relations, training and skills development, cutting red tape and infrastructure investment] in the vain hope that subsidies and work-arounds could make up for the broader deficiencies in economic settings".
While the scheme has positive elements, and is but one piece in the apparently massive economic reform program that is next week's long-awaited budget, its biggest flaw seems to be trying to achieve too much with too little.
$1.5 billion, which is well short of what the ACT government will spend on the second stage of light rail over the next decade, seems light on when you are talking about reforming a part of the economy that has been an industrial, technological, and ideological battleground for the better part of 200 years. It is a relatively minor spend on direct economic stimulus.
While the inclusion of $107.2 million to strengthen supply chains and $52.8 million for expanding the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund, which provides immediate assistance in priority areas, will be welcomed, how far will this stretch in a sector which, before COVID-19, employed almost 900,000 Australians and generated $100 billion a year in value to the economy, half of which came from exports?
Some critics, including from within the union movement, are already suggesting the Modern Manufacturing Strategy is inadequate. It risks being damned as a classic example of all custard and no cake.
The scale of the strategy is dwarfed by what has already been spent on JobSeeker and JobKeeper, and on the value of the manufacturing sector to the national economy.
The Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, opened the batting early when he said on Thursday: "The only thing Scott Morrison has managed to manufacture ... is announcements, rather than actually manufacturing jobs".
Such condemnation is unfortunate given a lot of work has obviously gone into the structure of the MMS which argues Australia should be playing to its strengths rather than trying to compete in high volume manufacturing sectors such as motor vehicles and the like.
That's why its hard to fault the PM when he says the MMS, and its constituent elements, are aimed squarely at resource technology, food and beverage manufacturing, medical products, recycling and clean energy, and defence and space.
These are all either "smart" fields of industry where expertise is the most important component or, as in the case of food and beverages manufacture and processing, areas where "Made in Australia" adds a seal of quality worth billions in export revenue.
If yesterday's announcement is simply the first step in a long-term commitment to spend whatever it takes to give Australian manufacturing a strategic advantage well into the second half of the 21st century it is to be welcomed.
If, on the other hand, it turns out to have been a $1.5 billion photo opportunity in the run up to a possible early election in the second half of 2021 then voters will have every right to be cynical.
