Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness) Share this | Hansard source

What you can take from me is that the minister—who has just arrived—oversaw the preparation of, I think, a landmark innovation-in-industry statement. It is a statement that has very widespread support. It also has support from the automotive industry, in which we have invested heavily and which the coalition would rip out half of its funding in 2015 alone—a fact that the shadow minister has acknowledged. Why? Because her shadow expenditure review committee rolled her. She has to go around the nation saying, 'We support auto workers' but in truth what they are doing is saying to the auto workers of Victorian and, more broadly, all the component manufacturers, 'Vote for us and we will cut your jobs; we will cut half your assistance by 2015 and that is coalition policy.'.

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