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

We heard the Prime Minister today talk about the challenges facing the manufacturing sector. You would think that, in acknowledging ever so briefly some of these challenges, she would not embark on a carbon tax that was going to send our manufacturing offshore and export our jobs. Alan Oster, the chief economist from the National Australia Bank, said that manufacturing is effectively in recession. Yet, with all this objective evidence the government is still indifferent to what a carbon tax will do to manufacturing.

In fact the Prime Minister was asked in this House earlier this month to nominate any representations she had received from a host of members on the other side relating the concerns and negative impacts that a carbon tax would have on local jobs and local manufacturing. What was really embarrassing was that she struggled and shuffled around, tellingly and frighteningly, and could not identify or point to a single discussion or a single piece of correspondence between any of them. In a desperation that continues the government's moral bankruptcy and disregard about Australian jobs and manufacturing, all they can resort to are cries of claiming that the coalition is running some sort of scare campaign. If you want to look at scare campaigns, all you have to look at are the apocalyptic warnings about global warming coming from the other side. We have the minister for climate change, after purchasing a million dollar coastal resort, recently feigning concern about rising sea levels, yet he has been buying a seaside mansion! You can just imagine him sucking in the seaside breeze, all of that fresh air, and telling all those poor little workers, those who put him there and gave him that profile, that they need to sacrifice their jobs so the Prime Minister can keep hers.

We had the scare campaign from the member for Corio during the last election saying that the coalition was going to take all this money away from Ford in Geelong and that jobs would be lost, knowing full well that was not the case. But where is the member for Corio when the workers in his electorate are demanding a voice in the Australian parliament? He is nowhere to be seen. All he does is go around the country slagging and bagging the opposition and refusing to stand up for the rights of and to note the anxiety of workers in his electorate. Where is the climate change minister, who has light and heavy industry and coal in his electorate? It was good enough for him to stand there shoulder to shoulder with the workers while trying to get a bit of publicity and increase his national profile when he wanted to get into parliament, but he has got to where he wanted to get—well, almost, as he wants to move further up those green benches. But all those workers are quite dispensable now because they got him into this parliament and he does not care, like so many other members on the other side. If they truly cared about manufacturing jobs and workers, they would have the courage to get out of that queue, the one that gives them a lobotomy, stop being zombies and actually stand up for the jobs of people in their electorates.

We have the member for Hunter, with all those coalmining jobs at risk, being silent. We have the member for Blaxland, who has manufacturing in his electorate, remaining absolutely silent. Surely he understands how important manufacturing is and not just to his portfolio of Defence. And the member for Melbourne Ports walks out because he knows he was next on the list. There is manufacturing in his electorate but what does he do? He remains silent. Where is the member for Chifley, the member for Kingsford Smith, the member for Throsby or the member for Cunningham? Where are they standing up for their local jobs?

All I can say is thank goodness there is some integrity left in the Labor Party albeit among recently departed members from this House. We had Jennie George, a former ACTU president and the member for Throsby, say: 'Local considerations rightly focus on the importance of the steel industry in underpinning our regional economy and providing jobs both direct and indirect. Constant references to the need to "tax the polluters" are superficial and facile by failing to acknowledge these benefits.' So when the government tries to run a scare campaign and when the government tries to diminish the opposition and belittle the arguments that we make we say: 'Fine, don't listen to what we say. Why don't you listen to what your own people say, what your own voters are saying, what your own union members are saying, what former members of the Labor Party are saying and what other trade unionists are saying?' We have had Paul Howes say that he will not support this carbon tax if a single job is lost in the steel industry—and we know that jobs will be lost in the steel industry. But where is he trying to force the Prime Minister to back down? He wanted to play the big man and be one of the faceless men to put the Prime Minister in, but I think he has been taking too many lessons from current members sitting in this House who occupied senior trade union positions but abandoned their basic responsibility to look after those people who thought that being a member of a union would give them some basic rights and would give them a voice in the political landscape in political debate in Australia. We have an almost empty House on that side and sitting in it a very morose current member for Throsby.

Mr Stephen Jones interjecting—

I would hang my head in shame if I were you. You strut around this place thinking you have made it and thinking you are some big shot but you are neglecting your basic responsibilities, you pathetic little man.

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