This will be about Australia producing more critical minerals,batteries,wind turbines and solar panels. It is not about electric vehicles – the batteries to be made in this country are more likely to be for households and industrial use. If it’s green,it will get government help. One example is the incentive for anyone who can use renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen in the hope of storing and transporting clean energy.

Big vision. Big money. Big risk. Albanese says he will not go “dollar for dollar” against the United States and the Inflation Reduction Act,yet the tax credits in Joe Biden’s policy show how costs can balloon. The US president estimated the fiscal cost at $US369 billion at the end of 2022,but there is no cap on the tax breaks. Credit Suisse tips a cost of $US800 billion over a decade,while Goldman Sachs says $US1.2 trillion.

Gulp. The White House claims the rewards are huge – such as $US5.6 trillion in benefits for the environment. That does not include the added jobs in new industries.

Just like Biden,Albanese will insist that the benefits outweigh the costs. Albanese set basic principles for the package when it was making its way through federal cabinet. The first was that the government needed to act and invest at scale,with real ambition. The second was that it had to act in areas where Australia already has a competitive advantage. That means resources,for instance,and turning lithium and nickel into batteries rather than shipping the raw material offshore.

The argument is that economic security and national security go hand in hand. Energy Minister Chris Bowen warned last year that Australians bought 60 million solar panels over the past decade butrelied on imports for 99 per cent of the total. Those imports were overwhelmingly from China.

Energy company AGL and billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes are in the running to set up asolar panel factory in the NSW Hunter Valley. What we do not know is how much taxpayer assistance they want to make it work.

Most of this looks like a distant dream. Green steel,for instance. Can Australia really produce steel without using coking coal? The view from Albanese is that Australia must be able to do so. One reason is that carbon tariffs will be imposed by the European Union and others,forcing the shift from fossil fuels.

Ross Garnaut and Rod Simsmade a similar warning about carbon tariffs in February when they called for big investment in new industries. Albanese is not,however,backing their idea for a carbon levy. That means the Labor policy has to fund the subsidies without finding a new way to raise revenue.

Thecase against this policy is the danger of throwing away taxpayer cash. Only this week,the International Monetary Fund warned that costly subsidies or tax breaks could hurt productivity and welfare if not effectively targeted. “This is frequently the case,for example when subsidies are misdirected toward politically connected sectors,” it said.

The Labor policy could be a rent-seeker’s bonanza. Those with access to Parliament House will line up for federal aid. Unless there is strict oversight,a damning report from the auditor-general is just a matter of time.

Labor has been here before. As prime minister more than a decade ago,Kevin Rudd said he wanted to lead a country that could “make things”. Some of the Labor subsidies were fairly modest and,in the car industry for example,unwound over nine years of Coalition rule. Albanese responds to that lesson by scaling up the ambition.

Dutton is yet to declare his hand on these big ideas. Where is the Liberal growth agenda? “We want to see more manufacturing in Australia,” said shadow treasurer Angus Taylor on Thursday. “But you don’t solve a cost-of-living crisis by throwing hard-earned taxpayers’ money around.” In other words,he has a complaint,not a plan. It will be easy for the Coalition to oppose the spending,but much harder for it to offer a compelling alternative.

That is why A Future Made In Australia is a vital part of the Albanese bid to win the election. The phrase is so blatantly retail that anyone who is against it almost sounds un-Australian. Albanese now has to convince voters he has a second-term agenda that Dutton cannot match.

There’s a huge wave out there,and Albanese thinks he can catch it. It will be a wild ride. And,if anything goes wrong,quite a dumping.

David Crowe is chief political correspondent.