Nationals leader eyes economics showdown with Liberals

Nationals leader Matt Canavan wants Australia to return to industrial protectionism to revive manufacturing and he reckons he can convince the economic rationalist Liberal leader Angus Taylor.

In his first National Press Club address as leader, Senator Canavan laid out a vision for an "Australia on steroids", decrying the economic orthodoxy that has defined the Nationals' coalition partner for decades.

He urged the nation to abandon net-zero targets, curb migration and embrace tariffs.

"I am proposing an Australian economic revolution, not a replay or a reset,'' he said.

"We won't get revival by tinkering around the edges. Some of this will require the long-overdue slaying of sacred cows."

One of those sacred cows is the idea that free trade and the free market continue to benefit Australians.

The world had turned away from the free trade consensus that dominated the last half-century, he argued.

Countries like China were "riding roughshod" over World Trade Organisation agreements, employing protectionist subsidies to steal Australian jobs and industry.

Without a more consistent approach to tariffs than the ad hoc application of anti-dumping counter-measures, Australia's sovereign capability would be wiped out.

"I don't agree with Donald Trump that 'tariff' is the most beautiful word in the English language, but it's not a dirty word either," Senator Canavan said.

Australians were experiencing an unprecedented decline in living standards, Senator Canavan said, taking aim at Australia's crop of "second-rate" political leaders for clinging to outdated economic thinking.

"A microwaved Milton Friedman is not going to solve our economic woes - and it is certainly not going to calm the rightful rage of the Australian people at their political leaders' incompetence in trashing the promise of the luckiest country in the world," he said.

His comments echoed Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, the opposition industry spokesman, who told ABC News a week earlier no one would reward the coalition "for a final last stand for neo-liberal politics".

But the Nationals leader's criticism of the Reagan-Thatcher brand of economic rationalism puts him at odds with Mr Taylor, who has consistently supported liberal economic values such as free trade and low taxes.

"One of the core things that I believe in strongly is getting access to markets. I don't like tariffs," Mr Taylor said in his first press conference as Liberal leader.

Asked if he could convince the opposition leader to support his revolution, Senator Canavan said Mr Taylor and the Liberal Party had always supported developing manufacturing industries.

He also cited the Nationals having won a previous argument with their senior coalition partner over dropping net-zero targets.

"A year ago, you guys wouldn't have given me a chance in hell to convince the Liberal Party or anyone else that they should drop net zero," he said.

Senator Canavan proposed a five-pronged economic plan, which he titled a Patriot Agenda for an Australian Economic Revival.

He called for a "manufacturing renaissance" through protecting key industries against foreign competition, and closing the border to mass migration to free up infrastructure and housing stock.

He wants to scrap net zero and foster investment in fossil fuels, along with a national works program to build more dams, roads, rail, ports and space-launching infrastructure.

Senator Canavan urged the construction of new mid-tier cities with populations of more than 500,000 to provide more choice to Australians who wanted a free-standing house and better access to services than in the bush, helping encourage a new baby boom.

"I like to call it a hyper Australia but whatever you like to call it, my agenda is an Australia on steroids," he said.