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

I thank the member for Oxley for his question and his ongoing interest in jobs and manufacturing businesses in his electorate. Last week the government announced reforms, indeed 29 improvements, to strengthen the antidumping regime in this country. Those improvements will see greater resources and more expertise dedicated to investigating cases of dumping which may affect Australian businesses and Australian jobs. We will extend 'material injury' to ensure the remedy is commensurate with damage endured by local businesses, we will enable businesses to access measures more rapidly, we will speed up the process, we will allow greater transparency and we will prevent companies from circumventing duties by disaggregating or aggregating imported goods.

These are very long overdue reforms that have been well received by both industry and unions. Companies such as Capral, BlueScope, OneSteel and Orica have emb­raced the government's announcements of last week. Indeed, the Australian Industry Group responded to the reforms by indicating:

The new anti-dumping measures announced today by the Federal Government are a positive step to help rebalance the playing field for Australian Industry.

The National Farmers Federation responded by saying:

… we are pleased to hear that the Government will improve the resourcing of Customs to work on anti-dumping issues.

The honourable member asked about why these changes are needed and about what other approaches there are. These long overdue reforms are needed because those opposite neglected this area of reform while they were in government. For more than a decade these reforms were required, but the previous government did nothing. They did not listen to industry and they did not listen to workers in this country in order to provide that support. Instead, the Leader of the Opposition decided to set up a task force in opposition—he should have been supporting industry and workers in government—led by the member for Indi, of all people, to go around the country to promise everything but deliver nothing. We, in contrast, have been looking at the Productivity Commission report recommendations and we have been considering the private member's bill introduced into the Senate by Senator Xenophon—and these reforms are compre­hensive. They are comprehensive and they redress the deficiencies that existed under the Howard government when it came to dealing with dumping that caused injury to Austr­alian businesses. The problem with the Leader of the Opposition is that he either just says no or does nothing when it comes to public policy.

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