Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. Any Australian worker who loses their job as a consequence of the current global economic recession—and more generally—is of direct concern to everyone who sits on this side of the House and, I assume, honourable member’s opposite as well. The practical challenge we face is how to deal with each concentration of unemployment—for example, that to which the honourable member refers—and at the same time to provide underpinning support for the economy as a whole.

On support for the economy as a whole, I have outlined to the House before, our $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan. Secondly, what I have also outlined to the House on previous occasions is our $4.8 billion nation-building plan announced last year, which focused on infrastructure. Thirdly, there is the Economic Security Strategy we released last October, with payments coming out in December. Each of those measures, including in the automobile sector—these levels of support to consumption in the economy—assist overall performance in the retail sector of the economy.

But, on top of that, at the end of last year the government—and from memory it was in September-October—released the $6.1 billion New Car Plan for a Greener Future. As a consequence of that plan, which we negotiated at length with the principal representative of the automobile industry in Australia and their parents abroad, we put in place the most secure investment environment possible for the automobile industry—and, as a consequence, the suppliers to that industry—going out to the year 2020. Honourable members will know the state of the auto industry around the world. The automobile industry in the United States is collapsing. The automobile industry in many parts of Europe is going through the same experience. We have also seen recent reports about the difficulties Toyota and others are experiencing within Japan. This is the reality—

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