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

I was explaining why I made that statement. It was to give lie to the misrepresentations we are seeing from the opposition about impacts on the aluminium industry. What they are refusing to acknowledge is all of the economic forces that are on aluminium and on manufacturing. No amount of coming into this place and fearmongering changes those facts. Look at the statements put out at management level from Alcoa where they say the strong Australian dollar is causing difficulties for them, where they point to factors like low global prices. Talk to the workers, who have a very sophisticated understanding of what is happening in their business. When you have done those things—actually absorbed the information and talked to the workers—you realise how insulting this campaign is to the working people in the aluminium industry and how insulting this campaign is to workers in manufacturing generally.

They understand that our economy is in a position of structural change and that it is structural change driven by strength and coming off a basis of strength. Let us remember that. When our nation has faced structural change in the past, often it has been off a basis of weakness when we have had economic downturns that have caused high unemployment and other weaknesses in the economy. We come to this period of structural change in a position of strength, but that does not mean there are not industries that are feeling that structural change in a painful way. Aluminium is one of them and we are determined to keep working with the industry and Alcoa during this period.

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