Labor will continue efforts to make Australia’s tax system more progressive but will not countenance adopting a universal basic income policy to address rising inequality, according to Chris Bowen.

The shadow treasurer will use a speech to a progressive thinktank in Sydney on Friday to lay down some policy markers in the opposition’s internal debate about economic policy for the next election, highlighting the importance of innovation, education and targeted regional interventions to address disadvantage.

But he will also push back against internal and external calls to adopt muscular policies, such as a universal basic income, saying the concept is “very much the wrong answer”.

Bowen will use his speech to PerCapita to argue that Labor needs “an activist policy to counter rising inequality” but that the first principle of policymaking in that space is “do no harm”.

Universal basic income (UBI) has some currency in progressive circles. Providing people with a basic stipend is seen as a mechanism to lift people out of poverty and also an antidote to accelerating technological change, where automation will see massive job losses.

The Australian Greens have argued the idea should be considered in conjunction with a four-day working week. The Green party in the United Kingdom has also proposed a UBI and a shorter working week in their current election manifesto.

But Bowen will argue a UBI is a terrible idea, because it would mean Labor has given up the principle “of ensuring dignity through work for Australians”.

He says it would see government proving “payments to millionaires”.

“One of the most important elements of Australia’s policy framework is our highly targeted welfare system,” Bowen will say. “Widespread means-testing means that we get greater bang for our poverty alleviation buck for every dollar spent in welfare.

“A universal basic income would be just that, universal. Providing payments to millionaires, at a considerable cost to the taxpayer, but payments that would barely be noticed by people of means.”

Bowen will say that, depending on how the payment is structured, it could represent a “savage cut” to people currently on pensions or disability allowances, or it could necessitate unsustainable increases in taxes.

“A universal basic income would present us with a rare and unattractive policy trade-off: making us even more unequal as a society or delivering us an unsustainable tax system.”

The shadow treasurer will say on Friday that regional inequality has to be a central part of policy thinking because any discussion about inequality in Australia that doesn’t deal with geographic inequality is missing a key part of the problem. “Where you live has a big impact on your quality of life.”

Bowen will note that half of all jobs created in Australia in the past decade have been created within 2km of either the Sydney or Melbourne GPO and regional unemployment remains high.

He will argue innovation policy has to look at collaborations in regional areas and he will point to an American program, Rise of the Rest, which is a private-sector initiative to fund start-ups in regional areas.

Bowen will also point to the importance of education. “With income inequality at 75-year highs, surely we must be more concerned than ever about the fact that that our education system entrenches and re-enforces, instead of ameliorates, disadvantage and inequality,” he will say.

“Increasing the quantum of education funding is important but a proper and genuine needs-based system is just as important.”

Bowen has been battling an internal push to beef up economic policy, including a campaign for a “Buffett rule” which would see wealthy Australians forced to pay a minimum rate of tax.

Labor’s former treasurer Wayne Swan recently warned his successor that the ALP needed to avoid being “trickle-down lite”, or offering voters “a sickening Davos third-way approach” at the next election.

Swan declared Labor “can’t delude ourselves” that spending more on education is the fix to growing inequality. He characterised that line of thinking as “whistling in the graveyard”.