Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

As we have witnessed in recent days, members of the government are more interested in fighting each other than fighting for the Australian car industry and for Australian workers. Today we heard the Treasurer talk about the matter of Holden's future. He gave every message that he is not there for the car industry. He basically started to threaten Holden, saying that it should be coming clean. I would imagine that Holden wants to know whether this government is fair dinkum, or not, in providing support for that very important iconic company. We have witnessed in recent times inaction and blame games instead of a unified effort to work with Holden and its employees. We need to make sure that we hold the government to account to provide such support.

Let us remember a couple of things that have been said by some of the senior members of the government. Before the election, the member for Sturt, the Minister for Education, said that he desperately wanted to see Holden remain in South Australia; since the election we have not heard a peep out of him. After being rolled by the Acting Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture over the sale of GrainCorp the Treasurer needs to save face. So it is no wonder that we are now seeing the Treasurer foreshadow that there will be no support for Holden. We saw how he folded his cards on GrainCorp; now, for him to save face, somebody has to pay a price. Who is to pay that price? It would appear that it is Holden employees and workers elsewhere in this very vital industry. We are imploring the government to re-engage with this important sector. However, when questioned about working with Holden to support Australian jobs, Mr Hockey, the Treasurer, said the government would not be 'running down the street chasing an individual car maker'. He also added some pretty telling words: 'there comes a point where you need to say enough is enough.' What did the Treasurer mean, when asked a question about supporting the car industry, when he said that there comes a time when enough is enough? Clearly, he was sending a message that he was not going to provide the support necessary to ensure that our car industry continues to be a success. The Acting Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture have got a win with GrainCorp—as they would see it they were looking after the agriculture sector—but there has been no effort to support the car industry.

Sitting across from me is the Minister for Industry. He seems to have sympathetic regard, at least outwardly, when it comes to the workers in this industry. He does talk about having an arm wrestle with the Treasurer. Minister, the fact is that we just do not think you are winning the arm wrestle. The Treasurer seems to be winning the arm wrestle here. He lost the one against Barnaby Joyce but he seems to be winning this one against you, and that is of grave concern for workers in the car industry.

This is a vital issue. It is now a major challenge facing this government. Either the government are going to say to the industry, 'We want to see this car industry have a long-term future,' and to the car industry employees, 'We want you to be going into Christmas with the full confidence that the federal government will be behind this sector, supporting workers and their families,' or they are going to squib it and walk away from this sector. My fear is that it is going to be the latter. From what we heard today from the Treasurer, there seems to be no interest by this government in supporting this sector, and that is an absolute shame.

I started this MPI by asking the question: where is the Prime Minister on this matter? For four years, as Leader of the Opposition, he was found in every workplace, using every blue collar worker he could find to stand behind him as a prop at his doorstops so that he could talk about how much he cared about workers in this country. Where is he now when it comes to Qantas? Where is he now when it comes to Holden? He is nowhere to be found. In fact, it is worse than that. He has already pre-empted the inquiry of the Productivity Commission. Before the election, this government said it was going to be a calm and methodical government. What has happened? We have had the Prime Minister come out and basically say that there will be no money for this industry, even though the Productivity Commission has not inquired— (Time expired)

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