Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

No. These reviews are necessary on a regular basis but the Rudd and Gillard governments have opted for quite a different approach. Minister Bowen, in his previous role and during days that were far less fraught for him, told everyone who wanted to listen after a COAG meeting in 2008 that Labor would act to amend the system. But Rip Van Winkle might as well have inherited the mantle of implementing government policy after that, because we have witnessed a trademark tale of Labor inaction when it has come to any kind of serious policy reform in this area.

Following Mr Bowen's announcement, Labor dragged its feet and shuffled the matter off to the Productivity Commission in early 2009. When the commission's report came back at the end of 2009, Labor dithered again—so badly, in fact, that it then sent the matter off for an internal review of some kind so it could postpone doing anything until after the 2010 election.

In trademark Labor tradition, the sad reality was that the government was far more interested in attempting to take the political heat out of the issue than making constructive policy changes in the national interest and in the interests of Australian industry, particularly Australian manufacturing. Inevitably, that has not done anybody any good, because the government has essentially been fiddling while Australian businesses have been suffering. All you need to do is go to any business that is affected by imported goods that are dumped and they will tell you about their frustration at a system that does not work and the impact on Australian industry, Australian manufacturing and how that is affecting investment decisions today.

In many ways, it is quite ironic that we should be having this debate so close to this year's budget. Because, even after all of this inactivity from Labor and after all the time that has passed without any decision whatsoever, it put its hand on its collective heart a few months ago, and said, 'Okay, we'll do something and we'll announce it as part of the 2011 budget'.

At least two ministers—the minister with the responsibility for Customs, and the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research—publicly stated that this would be the government's approach. There could well have been others as well, but you will have to forgive me for not exactly hanging off every worthless word of most of the senior officeholders of this government.

What have we seen? To our surprise, when looking through all the budget papers, we found nothing. Yet again, there was nothing. Again there was a shirking of the responsibility to look at this issue of antidumping.

Of course, this did not come as a particular shock or great revelation to anyone who is interested in this area of policy because, whenever anyone has tried to alert it throughout its time in government to the range of problems, to the flaws in the national anti-dumping regime, the Labor government has alternated between rolling its eyes, feigning concern, gazing uncomfortably at the ceiling or looking down at its shoes. And it has not done anything to address the very real and very serious issues involved.

Either it has not even recognised that significant problems exist in the system and that substantial remedies are needed or it has recognised them but it simply is incapable, unable, too frightened, weak or indecisive to do anything about it. I am not sure which one of those is true, but either would be equally as damning.

It is sobering to note that in his second reading speech on this bill, the Minister for Justice, responsible for Customs, said that the government was committed to an anti-dumping system that effectively addressed injury faced by Australian industry as a result of unfair trading practices.

In a panicked response to calls from the AWU and the coalition to reform the arrangements, he also admitted in mid-February that the government 'believed that there are improvements to be made.' One could say that it was nice to hear that coming from the minister, but I am afraid it has remained little more than a quick confessional and just a passing admission of failure. Ultimately, nothing more than lip service has been paid to the idea of genuine reform.

Unlike the government, we on this side of the House want real and practical reform. That is why the coalition antidumping taskforce that I lead is already working on developing an anti-dumping policy that we will be ready to implement and to act upon as soon as we are elected to government, whenever that time may be. This was foreshadowed during the last election. This was our policy. We committed to doing this and we are following through with that. We have been saying consistently for some time that some foreign goods are being sold cheaply in Australia on the back of government subsidies from their origin nation. This is unfairly distorting our domestic market, harming Australian businesses and ultimately, and gradually sometimes, costing local jobs. You do not see it immediately but you do see the impacts over several years of job losses and businesses either closing down or going offshore. Plainly Australian businesses are frustrated with an inefficient, ineffective and very expensive antidumping system. There need to be reductions in the costs, the complexities and the time that businesses confront in seeking remedies under Australia's current anti-dumping system.

In response to those problems and others like them the coalition has been on the record for some time about the need to take action to ensure that Australian manufacturers' products are not undercut by imported subsidised products. We do not believe that foreign governments should be in a position to distort our domestic market. That was our clearly stated position during the last election and we have built on that. It is essentially an important position to take at a time when Australian business and Australian manufacturing is looking for sensible, practical support from government as they confront the combined weight of factors like rising national debt and deficit, the prospect of further rate increases and the apparently inexhaustible appreciation of the Australian dollar. We understand and we appreciate that battling against unfairly priced imports is yet another pressure that they simply do not want or need or quite often can afford.

By contrast, the government has said nothing serious or of substance about this particular issues. Its policies and programs that affect Australian manufacturers consistently have the same effect. They put manufacturers under siege. They put businesses struggling on wafer-thin profit margins under even more pressure. And they reflect a desire, whether it is intentional or otherwise, to give foreign companies more power in the marketplace than Australians.

This approach infuriates manufacturers across the nation and that is why so many of them are beginning to speak out publicly. Workers across this nation are fearful about what it means for the long-term viability of their jobs and businesses, whether small, medium or large, and are absolutely volcanic with fury about the lack of vision and inaction the government is showing regarding the broad concerns of manufacturing in this country. It is why Graham Kraehe, the chair of Australia's largest manufacturer, BlueScope Steel, says that manufacturing is on the wrong side of Australia's two-speed economy and this difficult economic position is now being exacerbated by political expediency. It is why BlueScope's CEO, Paul O'Malley, says that the policy framework at the moment is wrong and that it seems to be captured by people who do not care whether there are manufacturing jobs in Australia. It is also why he speculates that there is an antimanufacturing focus in Australia at the moment. Let some be reminded that there are one million Australians employed in the manufacturing sector in Australia.

We go on to hear from OneSteel CEO, Geoff Plummer, when he said that a number of the government's projected actions make competing internationally difficult and that this company is concerned about things that either have been introduced or are speculated to be introduced which will significantly disadvantage Australian manufacturers compared to offshore manufacturers. It is why the Australian Food and Grocery Council CEO, Kate Carnell, has been moved to ask whether policymakers even want a food and grocery manufacturing industry in this country anymore. And it is why the CEO of Coca-Cola Amatil in Australia, Terry Davis, says that an urgent review of the future of manufacturing in Australia is required. It is why even trade unions are vociferously calling for more support from this government for manufacturing and less of its inactivity on subjects like antidumping. Admittedly these are only a small representative sample but these views are nearly universally shared by thousands of others. Does any manufacturer take seriously a government that spins lines about a new program in the budget called 'Buy Australian at Home and Abroad' that is supposedly meant to encourage the purchase of local products, yet at the same time plunders the manufacturing sector for all manner of other budgetary savings and is planning to impose a toxic tax that will send manufacturing offshore and export Australian jobs? Regrettably, while it ploughs most of the money into measures that, like the one mentioned, create more bureaucracy, it does absolutely nothing whatsoever to provide even the most miserable counter to the impact of punitive, job-destroying measures like the introduction of a carbon tax and cuts to the R&D tax concession. Embarrassingly, it also seems to think, if it merely slings another $10 million at a program to help business in a geographic area where another firm has already been severely affected by its inaction, that might kill two birds with one stone. It might get some positive media coverage and its difficulties from its inaction on antidumping might go away. This is breathtaking arrogance and breathtaking stupidity.

Make no mistake about it, the manufacturing industry is under serious threat in Australia, but all the government does is sit idly by. It almost always fails to consult and even on the rare occasions when it makes a half-hearted effort to do so, it inevitably breaks its commitments anyway, leaving those who have given their valuable time to this sham consultative process wondering why on earth they wasted their time in the first place. It puts in place pathetic policies that not only fail to arrest the decline of jobs and the loss of businesses offshore that have already occurred under its watch but actually accelerate these trends. You would think that members of this government, or at least some of them, would be proactive and have some empathy and some concern for what manufacturing businesses are telling them in their own electorates. You would think they would muscle up and honour all the rhetoric and promises they have made to the manufacturing sector about creating a more promising future and valuing their innovation, which has been so integral, particularly from the small- to medium-sized manufacturing sector, to the technological advances and innovation in larger companies in Australia. Even after around 90,000 manufacturing jobs have already been lost in Australia and a string of businesses in the sector have gone to the wall under this government's feeble watch, it is almost like they wear it as a badge of honour and they are resisting all calls for them to fix this mess. I am not sure how loud the calls have to be from everyday Australians, from thousands of businesses and their workers, from the coalition and from independent members of this parliament, for them to actually start listening and to start delivering on policies like antidumping that will help the nation, that will say to hardworking businesses who are not subsidised and do not have the protection of tariffs: we value what you do and we are not going to allow the distortion of the domestic market to your disadvantage and the advantage of a foreign company.

For the moment, the coalition will give its in-principle support to this bill as a means of helping the Labor Party takes its first baby steps in the long and arduous task it has created for itself if it is to sensibly enhance our antidumping system. But at the same time we also call on the government to abandon its ineptitude and inactivity as well as its general indifference to everyone who is willingly providing it with sensible suggestions and solutions. Pretending there are no problems regarding antidumping and manufacturing does not make it so. It does not matter how loudly you say it; it does not matter how often you say it. It is time to face the reality of the problems that dumping is causing in Australia and the stress under which it is putting very successful and innovative Australian businesses. It is time to actually stand up for something and it is time to actually start doing something.

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