Australia will need to work fast to remodel its workforce for net-zero industries and other economic and strategic shifts, warns the head of the nation's jobs and skills agency.
As debate continued in parliament on the government's signature Future Made in Australia policy, Jobs and Skills Australia commissioner Barney Glover said post-secondary education needs rebalancing to meet the economy's changing needs.
"To be a clean energy superpower, to leverage AUKUS pillar two ... we must rebalance," he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.
Revitalising the manufacturing base, and taking advantage of Australia's plentiful renewable resources to turbocharge clean industries, are central to the government's Future Made in Australia agenda.
Professor Glover said 38 clean-energy occupations were already in short supply or on track for shortages over the next decade.
These include electricians, of which there was already a 32,000 shortfall.
The field was heavily male-dominated with women making up two per cent of workforce, Prof Glover said.
Workforces without a balanced gender split were more likely to experience labour shortages, he explained.
"It comes back to our school system ... it comes back to improving outcomes there, encouraging more people into post-secondary education.
"It's a huge challenge."
Under the Future Made in Australia strategy, $22 billion over 10 years will go towards safeguarding Australian control over the resources and manufacturing sectors.
The coalition is set to oppose the manufacturing plan, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor describing the scheme as pork barrelling.
"The more we learn about this plan, the more it simply doesn't stack up," he said.
"It's a plan for more government, not more business investment. It's a plan for more inflation at a time when Labor is already making its homegrown inflation worse."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said as other nations moved towards net-zero economies, Australia had the opportunity to be a leading player in the transition.
"We can choose to carry on as we are, to stay in our lane and be satisfied with our lot and watch the world move past us, or we can actually move forward," Mr Albanese told parliament on Wednesday.
"This is the decisive decade for our nation's future. We are in our moment right now, and we must seize it."
Projects funded under the strategy would be determined by a national interest framework, and ensure jobs would be safe and well paid.
The manufacturing strategy formed the centrepiece of the government's federal budget handed down in May.
Greens leader Adam Bandt called the legislation an "election slush fund for more coal and gas", urging the government to guarantee the measures won't be used to finance fossil fuel projects.
"There's nothing in this legislation that rules out public money going to more coal and gas or to the infrastructure that supports it," he said.
The Greens are yet to commit to a formal position on the fund, but will decide after a parliamentary inquiry into the legislation.
The Future Made in Australia laws were essential to the future of the economy, Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said.
"These new industries provide an opportunity to build a new economic foundation for Australia that can ultimately substitute declining international demand for and revenues from, fossil fuels," he said.
