Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I sit here and listen in bewilderment and wonder. Here we have a party who pretend to be looking after the workers' interests, yet how could anyone who has the workers' interests at heart possibly be politicising this issue as much as they are now and striking so much fear into the hearts of auto industry workers when everyone knows what the process is. No-one is in any doubt about what the process is. The process is very straightforward. I announced it when I walked through the Holden plant, wearing Peter Brock's hat. He gave me that hat when I was minister for industry last time and opened a Holden dealership. I was proud to wear it, even though he knew that I was a Ford supporter and that I was pleased to see Ford win the Bathurst 1000. The reality is that we walked through the plant that day with members of the Labor Party, and they assured me that they would not be political about the process. Their interests and our interests were the same and they were about ensuring that we had a methodical process to look at how the car industry would best survive in Australia. What we have seen in the last two days is a complete dereliction of duty by members opposite as they embarked on a scare campaign and begun setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. What these people on the other side do not understand is that, every time they suggest Holden will close, someone out there who is considering buying a Holden will have second thoughts.

We know what those people opposite can do to motor sales. We saw it when they were last in government. We saw the $1.8 billion FBT hit that they laid on the industry. It was not, as they suggested, against doctors and lawyers and highly paid people who were going in to buy a Mercedes. If they had actually gone to a car dealership, like I did out at Ipswich, and talked to the dealer principals, they would have known that the people who were coming in and cancelling their order were the tradies, the government employees, the nurses, the ambos, the firies and the teachers—the people who rely on getting a car as part of their package, as a way of having a new car in their garage.

Those people opposite did more damage to the car industry with that one move than anything I have seen in the history of the car industry. Mr Deputy Speaker, I say in all modesty that I have been the industry minister a damn sight longer than anyone over there. In fact, they rattled through a series of industry ministers but not as many as they did on small business, where they changed them almost every week. I would have to say that, in my time as industry minister, which is both now and previously, I have never seen one measure do more damage than the introduction of the FBT.

The other measure that has damaged the confidence of those who manufacture here in Australia is of course the carbon tax. The carbon tax adds a cost of up to $400 per vehicle manufactured in Australia, but there is not a cent of carbon tax put against a vehicle coming into Australia. It is a reverse tariff . It has made it more difficult for our industry to compete against imports.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you would think at a time when the car industry is expressing its concern about its future that the Labor Party would think about the car industry's future and stop playing politics—but no. They cannot resist it. They cannot allow themselves to get behind the process, which the member for Wakefield agreed to. He walked through the Holden plant with me—and I was pleased to have him there. But, given the opportunity to play politics, they are never going to pass it up, are they? I would have thought that, now he has an insight into the difficulties that the car industry faces, he would walk across and say to his mates in the Senate: 'Listen, we've got to do everything we can to get these guys going. We need every opportunity.' Why don't you go over and ask them, Member for Wakefield, to pass the revocation of the carbon tax?

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