Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Gorton that this House condemns the Abbott government for its failure to protect Australian jobs in the automotive and manufacturing sector. I move an amendment to that motion:

That all words after 'that' be omitted and the following words substituted:

That this parliament pledges to work together to protect and support manufacturing and employment in Australia through policies that promote growth, particularly taxation and regulatory policies.

This issue is far too important for the political game-playing that we are seeing from our Labor colleagues in the chamber today. The people in South Australia and Victoria and the Holden workers in both Melbourne and Adelaide are not really interested in the political game-playing by the opposition on this issue today. They are sitting in their homes and workplaces thinking that by 2017 at the latest they will have had to find new careers and new jobs to feed their families.

The amendment that I move to the motion moved today by the member for Gorton reflects the fact that this parliament should rise above the petty point-scoring that we are seeing from the opposition on this issue, because there are hundreds of thousands of people in the manufacturing sector around Australia, not just the car workers. There are hundreds of thousands of families, workers, small-business people, whether it is in the component industry or other manufacturing, that are all affected by exactly the same issues that have impacted on Holden in their announcement today. Nobody seriously believes—do they?—that Holden is the only company in Australia that is affected by the high Australian dollar, high production costs, high real wages. That is what was reflected in the press statement that General Motors made from Detroit. They did not seek to blame the federal government, the state government or anybody else for what has happened to Holden. They very pointedly, clearly and factually set out why this commercial business decision was made in Detroit, probably in the last few months but communicated today. They said in the statement:

The decision to end manufacturing in Australia reflects the perfect storm of negative influences the automotive industry faces in the country, including the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, small domestic market and arguably the most competitive and fragmented auto market in the world.

General Motors themselves made it perfectly plain.

The opposition are still playing the games. It is pathetic.

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