Australia’s Opposition Lays Out Economic Vision Ahead of Polls

(Bloomberg) -- Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese has laid out his alternate vision for Australia if he wins the upcoming election due in May, pledging to invest in renewable energy and revitalize the manufacturing industry.

Speaking in parliament on Thursday night local time, Albanese said the country's mineral and rare earths resources should be processed at home instead of getting the commodities shipped offshore for processing. 

“We can revitalize Australian manufacturing and power that manufacturing with Australian made renewable energy,” he said. “Exporting resources will always be important to Australia's economy. But we should also use our resources – like our minerals and rare earths – to make products like batteries here, instead of just shipping them offshore and importing the finished goods.”

The speech was the opposition Labor Party's official response to the center-right Liberal National Coalition's 2022 Budget which was announced on Tuesday. The budget revealed the country's pandemic-induced debt has sharply reduced, while the government announced spending to reduce cost-of-living pressure and a prediction of an unemployment rate of 3.75% by the end of the year.

On Friday, Albanese accused the government of presenting a budget to win the election, rather than focusing on future prosperity. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has previously said Albanese's Labor Party would be unable to manage Australia's economy properly if it took power in the 2022 election.

Both parties are setting the battlelines for an election campaign which is due to be announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as early as this weekend. Morrison must held an election by May 21 under Australian law.

The incumbent government is trailing the opposition Labor Party badly in opinion polling, but Morrison was losing by a similar margin ahead of the 2019 election, only to produce an unexpected victory for his party.

Albanese announced plans to improve the country's aged care homes, which have come under huge pressure during the pandemic, through a range of measures including a pay rise for workers and mandating a number of hours of care. 

“We've been a through a tough couple of years, but I know our best days can be ahead of us,” he said. 

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