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

I thank the member for Wakefield for his supplementary question. He is concerned about the future of Holden because of its importance to his local communities. When we met today and talked to the car industry workers who are in the gallery, I met with Michael Etherington from Holden, who spoke about the importance of Holden to the future of suburbs like Salisbury and Elizabeth, which the member for Wakefield represents in this parliament. I want those communities to have a future. I want them to have a future that includes car making and those high-skill, high-wage jobs in their local community. That is why I am determined that the industry has a future in this country. That is why it is so devastating that the opposition is robbing this industry of certainty and therefore robbing these workers of jobs.

I invite my Labor colleagues to look up at the workers in the gallery, confident in the knowledge that we are working to support their jobs. I invite the opposition to turn around and look in the eyes of those workers whose jobs they are setting out to destroy.

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