Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was referring to the member for North Sydney. This is a government whose Prime Minister's policy was to have no meetings with Holden. He had no meetings with Holden and he also refused to meet with component workers who came up to this House—citizens and workers—and asked to meet with the Prime Minister about their jobs and 50,000 other jobs across the country. They asked to meet with him and what did they get? They did not get a meeting, just as Holden did not get a meeting.

That is an extraordinary industry policy to have. I can tell you who pays the price of all this. It is Mr Murray Akehurst, who I talked about yesterday. He is a 50-year-old auto assembler at Holden, who has worked at the plant for 16 years. He is one of many. One of them emailed me today. I will not reveal his last name but his first name is Martin. He said:

From myself and my family I would like to thank you and the Labor team for your hard work to help trying to keep the automotive industry going. It has been a very hard road recently, and there will be rocky roads ahead.

What I tell Martin is that the Labor Party and I will be there for that rocky road, which has been created as a policy choice by this government. Make no mistake about it. People in my electorate and around the country are going to be paying the price for this government's investment decisions. It is not just Labor who is disappointed. It is not just people in my electorate who are disappointed. It is not just Toyota and component companies who are disappointed. It is Minister Hodgett, who said to Sky News:

My message to federal colleagues is any speculation on the future of Holden is not helpful. It's disappointing.

So the Victorian industry minister is disappointed with the federal government, because he knows as we know the economic damage that is being done to this country in terms of jobs and investment.

This is a government not of adults but of erratic children who are playing politics with people's lives. Rather than rolling out the welcome map for foreign investment and rather than engaging, they withdrew and then they demonised. It is costing jobs in the Australian economy.

This government is taking on the character of its Prime Minister, a character of doing nothing. That is the first instinct in all his decisions: to do nothing. Then, when they have to make a decision we see the division rolling out. We have seen that in the last 24 hours with the demonising of workers at this plant. These are workers who during the global financial crisis worked one week on and one week off—one week with pay and one week without pay. Many of them gave up their afternoon shift penalty rates to go onto the day shift. They made sacrifices to keep this factory going. When they were asked to stump up costs, what did they do? They gave up those costs. But they are demonised for their efforts in trying to save this company.

Finally, what do we see on display from this government: the economic xenophobia of BA Santamaria. That is where this government is revealed—the economic xenophobia of the member for New England and of the member for Warringah. To try to fight this we have a Treasurer who, to prove that he had policy grunt, sacrificed 50,000 jobs and an iconic brand. It is just not good enough.

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