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

Of course, manufacturing is the car industry so it is a relevant amendment to the original motion. Beyond 2015, $1 billion sits on the table for the car industry. So taxpayers' money is not the problem. If taxpayers' money was the problem, why would it be that, six months after previous Prime Minister Ms Gillard announced a $275 million package for the car industry, in March 2012—and heralded it by saying 'through the announcement that we've made together today we know Holden will be here through to 2022'—Holden announced that they were reducing their workforce by eight per cent? That was in spite of the fact that the Premier of South Australia, Mr Weatherill, said, 'What we're guaranteeing is no jobs decline.' He said that in the paper on 24 March 2012, and then, six months later, Holden reduced their workforce by eight per cent.

All fair-minded people in this place and in the community know that there has been a tremendous amount of taxpayers' money put into the car industry over decades, not just since the Howard government's automotive plan. General Motors have made it absolutely clear today that the reasons they are closing the operations have nothing to do with the decisions the federal government made. Labor can spin their wheels and try their best to pretend to the Holden workers that this has something to do with the federal government. They will find it very hard to explain how, if it is our fault, Holden is closing its operations. It was not their fault that Ford closed their operations, that Mitsubishi closed their operations, or that the Olympic Dam expansion is not going ahead. They will find it very hard to explain why they thought support for the car industry was to make fringe benefits tax changes that hit the car industry with $1.8 billion of extra tax. They will find it very hard to explain to the people of my great state how a carbon tax that added to the cost of building a car did not have any impact on the car industry. It did not have any impact, apparently, on the car industry!

Their hypocrisy is writ large in this debate. The sanctimony coming from the Labor Party is gut-wrenching. This goes beyond politics. I see the member for Kennedy here. He has been arguing for years for policies for the car industry, and other industries that we probably do not support. But at least he has been genuine from the beginning. I did not hear these howls of outrage and condemnation for their own government when Ford and Mitsubishi announced that they were closing. I do not remember the South Australian members of parliament standing up here and criticising the previous government when BHP said that sovereign risk, uncertain government policy, extra taxes and the demands of the union movement were the reasons that the Olympic Dam expansion was not going ahead. The public are not stupid. The public know full well what has been going on in manufacturing in Australia. It is in the statement made by General Motors-Holden.

I ask the question, as a South Australian: what has my state government done in the last 12 years to diversify our state's economy? Why hasn't it been putting resources into agriculture, education services, construction or the mining industry? Why didn’t it diversify our economy rather than relying on more and more taxpayers' dollars to keep a car industry here—an industry that said today that taxpayer dollars were not the reason they were staying in the first place and taxpayer dollars would not keep them here?

Even if the Abbott government had announced another half a billion dollars for the car industry on top of the $1 billion that is already on the table, would it have kept the car industry here? It is very unlikely that it would have, because the decisions about this were made in Detroit. It was Detroit's decision not to allow Holden to export. There was a time a few years ago when Holden was exporting to the United States, when, in California, if you got into a police car—hopefully not!—or saw a police car, it was made by Holden at Elizabeth. They were exporting to the Middle East, one of their biggest export destinations. Then Detroit made the decision that Holden should not compete with their own operations in America by exporting to the United States and the Middle East. It was Detroit's decision not to reinvest in equipment for Holden at Elizabeth, to make the plant more and more competitive.

The reason the House is basically quiet is that everybody knows this is true. All the political point-scoring in the world, all the outrage in the world, will not change the fact that what I am stating is known facts. I mourn what Holden has announced today, but unfortunately we have to work together to make it better for the future.

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