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

I was asked a question about support for jobs at Holden and I am answering that question about support for jobs at Holden. Yes, this government will support jobs in car making. Yes, we will continue the co-investments we have agreed to with Holden. Yes, we will do everything we can to resist the opposition's plan to rip half a billion dollars away from that industry support and to cost 2,000 hardworking Australians their jobs. That is the big risk in South Australia and that is the big risk at Holden. If the opposition were ever elected it would cost those South Australians their jobs. Of course, if you pull the plug on Holden in South Australia, as the opposition is intending to do, you not only pull the plug on those direct car making jobs; you pull the plug on thousands and thousands of other jobs in South Australia and in the supply chain. So let me be very clear to the member from Indi that we will never endorse her reckless plan to see those thousands of Australians thrown on the unemployment scrapheap.

Now, when it comes to carbon pricing and manufacturing, the member for Indi and the Leader of the Opposition have consistently engaged in a campaign of fear about this. The claims they have made are actually untrue. The dollar claims they have made about car making are absolutely untrue, and anybody who knows about car making recognises that the big pressures on car making in this country are the strength of the Australian dollar and what that does for competitiveness. So we will focus on the real issues and we will focus on Australian jobs because that is what Labor governments do.

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