Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation report, Employment in the automotive components manufacturing sector, tabled by the member for Deakin. Firstly, I acknowledge all members of the committee, particularly the chair, the member for Deakin, as well as the member for Werriwa, Chris Hayes, and the member for Shortland, Jill Hall, who were very attentive to their obligations in this inquiry. Margaret May and a number of other members also put a lot of effort into this. I also join the chair in thanking the secretariat—Anna Dacre and Siobhan Leyne, but also Loes Slattery and Daniel Miletic—without whom we would not have a report as good as this.

As the chair indicated, it is true to say we had some difficulties with getting cooperation from parts of the industry. That is a concern. Whether that is a cultural thing with respect to the industry not wanting to speak directly to the federal parliament I am not sure, but it certainly did not provide us with confidence that all in the industry know what the best approach is to solving some of the pressing problems it confronts.

There is no doubt that this inquiry came at a very important, indeed critical, moment in the industry’s history. As the report asserted, it has been said many times that automotive manufacturing in Australia is in a period of transition. However, this report, I hope, will certainly assist the industry and assist government in seeking out the best answers to the problems that it currently confronts.

There is no doubt that the inquiry focuses on skills shortages in the industry and the need to attend to those skills shortages. You have a paradox in the automotive parts industry: on the one hand there are skill shortages, but on the other you have redundancies. Surely we can solve this problem, particularly when, in the case of many redundancies—redundancies that really hurt ordinary working families across the country in this industry—there is significant lead time before they lose employment. Surely we can attend to providing proper skills and ensuring that there are fewer redundancies, if there have to be any at all, so that the industry is not crying out for particular skills.

We think governments should attend to that. I think the unanimous report suggests quite clearly that all members are concerned that not enough has been done with respect to skill shortages, attending to those shortages and attending to the labour adjustment policies that have been wanting. There are some very practical recommendations in this report. It is also important to note that there is no dissenting report. This is the third report for me as deputy chair and the first time that there has been no dissenting report. This is unusual for an employment committee, given the current policies of the Commonwealth.

I have to say that, almost to a witness, the employers and unions did not focus upon IR. It certainly does raise the question as to why the Commonwealth wants to proceed with Work Choices, because, in my view, clearly the major issues confronting the industry are not about changing industrial relations laws, and they are certainly for the worse for employees in this country. I think the report is worth reading. It is unanimous and it says a lot of things about what the government should be doing to help the industry.

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