Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Aston was not in this place during the Howard years, so he therefore might not be aware of the fact that, during those years, manufacturing business after manufacturing business shut their doors—certainly in my electorate they shut their doors—and turned to importing. But he should recall the fact that, during the global financial crisis, the opposition was utterly missing in action and refused to support Labor's stimulus package measures which were responsible for the ongoing employment of thousands of workers around Australia in areas like building and construction. I have been to school after school in my electorate and seen the way in which the Building the Education Revolution projects protected jobs, protected employment, during the time of the global financial crisis. If those opposite had had their way, manufacturing in this country would have declined dramatically and we would have seen unemployment levels of the same order that the United States and European countries are wrestling with, instead of the under five per cent unemployment which we have been able to deliver in Australia.

The member for Aston expresses concern on behalf of one of his local businesses that employs, I think he said, 40 people. I do note that there are many solar PV businesses in New South Wales which are now going out of business as a consequence of the New South Wales O'Farrell government's retrospective action concerning feed-in tariffs—action which was in breach of the New South Wales government's election commitments. The member for Aston might have some credibility if he were also to express some concern about the fate of those New South Wales solar PV businesses.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

The member for Riverina interjects.

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