Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was asked a question about redundancies today, in a manufacturing business where the person in the business discussed, among other factors, the high Australian dollar, so I am directly responding to the part of the question that raises that issue. What I am saying is that this is an issue for the business that the member raises. It is an issue for Australian manufacturing. Every step of the way we have been strongly engaged with Australian manufacturing. The minerals resource rent tax is about taking more tax from the strongest section of the economy, giving a tax cut to other businesses. The NBN has the ability to drive productivity in our manufacturing sector. We are working with supplier advocates so manufacturing can get its fair share of the growth from the resources boom by supplying the things that mining companies want. We are working through Australian industry participation plans. We have dealt with new arrangements in relation to antidumping. So every step of the way we have been strongly engaged with Australian manufacturing and we will continue to stay strongly engaged with Australian manufacturing. We want to make a difference. We want to be a country that continues to make things. We want to be a country that continues to manufacture things like buses.

The member also raised with me the impact from putting a price on carbon. What the member may not be aware of is that we have specifically allocated literally over $1 billion to work with our manufacturing sector to support them in competitiveness, and we will be supporting them in competitiveness because we want to see a strong manufacturing sector and we want to see the jobs that come with manufacturing for the future.

What I will not tolerate and what we will not do on this side of the House is things like the half a billion dollar cutback to assistance for the automotive industry—that is part of the opposition's plans—we will not do that, because we are very determined to support Australian manufacturing and the jobs of the workers within it.

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