Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I will come back to the amendments and address the comments directly made by the member for Melbourne. He talked about wind turbines being imported from overseas. You have to ask yourself the question why are so many manufactured products now coming from overseas. It is because they are more competitive against Australian manufactured goods, and a significant reason for that uncompetitiveness of Australian made goods is the carbon tax. So before the Greens try to pretend by moving these amendments that they are actually care for manufacturing, let people on both sides of this House look at the track record of the Greens and look at what they have done to Tasmania, that great state with extraordinary potential, over decades—destroying the economic potential, the manufacturing, the agricultural exports, the timber industry and the mining industry in that state—and ask yourselves whether these amendments are genuinely intended in the best interests of Australian manufacturing. Of course they are not, because if we really followed the Greens' agenda we would have no manufacturing in this country. This is feigned concern for the manufacturing sector. It makes a bad bill worse and the Greens will stand condemned for what they have done to the uncompetitiveness of manufacturing in this country.

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