The more detail we get on the government's Future Made in Australia plans, the more holes appear. This week, the Treasurer wheeled out the rhetorical flourishes in yet another attempt to convince the public that his reheated stale protectionism was something new and shiny.

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Unfortunately, Jim Chalmers' speech coincided with the announcement of a massive whack of taxpayer support to lure a US-based tech company to set up in Queensland. This deal is the very definition of the phrase "picking winners".

Although in the past the Treasurer has rightly been criticised for using ambiguous language, we can now see exactly what he means, and where he is right and where he has gone wrong.

For example, at one point he notes, "the scale of subsidies in the three major global economies of course dwarfs anything Australia can offer". This is absolutely correct. Australia cannot even hope to compete in a subsidy war in manufacturing.

However, he went on to justify indulging in the global green subsidy race anyway by claiming that it would be "preposterously self-defeating to leave our policies unchanged in the face of all this industry policy".

This is absolutely incorrect.

Counter-intuitively, Australia would benefit most from the subsidy war precisely by not taking part at all. We should buy our cheap batteries from America and Germany and our cheap solar panels from China or any other country foolish enough to waste taxpayer dollars on subsidising........

© The Examiner