The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, has warned against erecting barriers to trade and immigration when automation and technology are more to blame for job losses and slow wage growth.

In a speech defending an open economy at the Crescent Institute on Wednesday, Bowen called for policies to combat inequality, which he said would help policymakers defend globalisation and its benefits.

Bowen noted the rising tide of protectionist and anti-immigrant sentiment around the world, including in the US and Britain’s desire for “isolation” from Europe.

He said in Australia the trends could be seen in the return of Pauline Hanson whose “current attacks on Islam [have replaced] her prejudices against Asians and Aborigines in the 1990s”.

Minor parties are “crowded” with those that blame trade more than immigration, he said.

Bowen warned populist stances were harmful because open trade and immigration had contributed to more than 25 years of continuous economic growth in Australia.

“Living standards – as measured by national income per person – have grown by 60% over the last 25 years,” he said.

Bowen noted that household goods were cheaper than ever due to imports, including electronics being 90% cheaper than 25 years ago. Luxury items were now “commonplace in most households around Australia”.

“It is estimated that the tariff cuts put in place by the Hawke/Keating government have put nearly $4,000 into the pockets of average Australian households.”

Bowen said that migrants come to Australia and work hard, making them “a vital part of the success of the postwar years”.

Immigration would lead to a 5.9% gain in GDP per capita in the next 35 years, according to the Migration Council.

Bowen argued it was simplistic to blame trade for the decline in manufacturing because automation and technology – though they boost productivity – have played a large role making jobs obsolete.

He argued that “faster and more instantaneous dissemination of information and services” meant that services sector jobs could also “be traded at light speed with the tap of a keyboard”.

“Automation threatens the jobs of all working people.”

Bowen questioned how erecting trade barriers could prevent job losses from technology.

Policymakers should “better identify the cohort of people and industries struggling with the changes”, he said, and suggested the Productivity Commission or a similar body to regularly report on how trade reforms, technology and automation benefit communities.

“This work would importantly also allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the people, industries and regions that are adversely affected or displaced from the increasingly rapid change from the new wave of globalisation.”

The shadow treasurer advocated “more investment in relevant education, training and industry plans” rather than “returning to the old days of hoping that protection can prop us up, when it actually drags us down”.

Bowen conceded the open economy was not “working well for everyone”.

“National income per person, in other words our living standards, is almost 2% less than where it was three years ago,” he said.

“For two years, many Australians have grown progressively worse off, not better off. We’ve seen this crystalise in the lowest wages growth on record in Australia.”

Bowen said he cared about income inequality, social mobility and inclusiveness from a moral point of view as a progressive but also because they “[make] it easier to defend globalisation and an open economy”.

He said decline in trade union membership was “at least in part” to blame for low wages, and the result of generations of “union bashing”.

Bowen said voters who feel the economy isn’t working for them wanted greater representation, as seen in gains by Labor in Tasmania, Nick Xenophon in South Australia and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

“The last thing our economy needs is a retreat to protectionist isolationism. We can and we must win that argument,” he said.

“But let’s listen as we do so, and make sure that Australians who currently feel excluded are included.

“Let’s make sure that our growth is more inclusive and our nation fairer.”