Trade unions are demanding the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates to ease the crippling impact of a strong Australian dollar on the manufacturing sector, saying the 1000 job cuts announced by BlueScope this week are ''just the beginning''.

Unions and representatives from the steel industry briefed about 25 federal Labor backbenchers in Canberra yesterday on the threats to manufacturing in Australia.

One of those MPs, Steve Jones, admitted the Government needed to be doing more to help local manufacturers snare a bigger slice of the booming resources sector and government procurement.

His electorate includes the Illawarra region, which will be hit hard by the BlueScope job cuts.

But Prime Minister Julia Gillard believes the Government has delivered ''big plans for manufacturing''.

That includes more than $5 billion for the car industry, and programs such as Enterprise Connect, the Powering Australian Ideas agenda, and the Australian Procurement Statement.

''We've been strongly engaged with manufacturing,'' Ms Gillard said in Canberra.

Its latest initiative, the Buy Australian at Home and Abroad scheme announced on Wednesday, included the appointment of former Queensland premier Peter Beattie as an envoy for manufacturers.

In contrast, she said Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had a ''cutback agenda''.

''He is always happy to be photographed next to a manufacturing worker, but what he's never going to do is put his hand up to assist their jobs.''

But Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said after the briefing that the situation in the manufacturing sector had gone beyond the ''blame game''.

Mr Howes, along with Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver, and Australian Steel Institute chief executive officer Don McDonald, told MPs it was time to have a sensible debate in Australia about the future make-up of the economy and its industries.

''We have a situation where manufacturing, agriculture, tourism are all under huge threat, frankly because of inaction by the RBA and some pretty dodgy economics from Treasury,'' Mr Howes said.

He also dismissed as ''rubbish'' suggestions Australia would face a Zimbabwe-like inflation breakout if interest rates were cut.

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens will front federal politicians in Melbourne today for his six-monthly grilling, where he will be quizzed on the growing divide between the resources and non-resources sectors.

Mr Oliver said the first thing Mr Beattie should do is call for an audit of the resources projects to ascertain their local content.

''Some are saying 50 per cent, but we know it can be as low as 10 per cent,'' he said.

Ms Gillard described talk of protectionism as ''cheap populism'' and a ''slippery slope''.

''We are a great trading nation ... [with a] turbo-charged resources sector and it would make us the subject of trade retaliation,'' she said.

Mr Abbott said the Government could help manufacturing by abandoning its carbon tax and cutting spending, which would relieve pressure on interest rates and the dollar.

But Australian Greens leader Bob Brown blamed both major parties for mismanaging the boom.

''Both of them, and Abbott's worse than Gillard,'' he said.