Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am no Paul Keating. I can assure you I am no Paul Keating. I say that emphatically because at the same time that the Labor Party was placing Paul Keating on a pedestal today, I was reminded of Paul Keating's comments in the Sun Herald of 1991. The article said:

Taxpayers are paying $1.6 billion a year, or $4,000 a car, to keep the car industry afloat. Treasurer Paul Keating has described this level of protection as a disgrace.

It was $4,000 in 1991. Today it is $4,961 per car. It is not the same in real terms, but does Paul Keating hold that view today? Did he say that to the Labor Party caucus today? Please spare us the hypocrisy on this. Please spare us the hypocrisy about caring for workers.

Paul Keating, the man who appeared in caucus today, said in 2000:

What do I say—

to people who lost their jobs—

What is your new job like? One of the 2.5 million created since the early 1980s. People have found better jobs. I mean, did we ever hurt anybody liberating them from the car assembly line?

That was said by Paul Keating, who appeared in the caucus today. He said, 'Of course we did not'. The way people talk about this free trade and fair trade, as if the economy is static and not dynamic, and a job lost is not a job replaced, is just bunkum—that is Paul Keating.

So today, when Paul Keating is in caucus and they are holding him up on a pedestal as the man who delivered economic reform, they come into this place and rail against the failure of the government to massively increase the amount of subsidy for car production in Australia and they say there is something wrong with change in the auto industry.

But let us deal with the facts, because the facts need to be stated. In 2000, 44 per cent of the cars sold in Australia were Australian made. In 2005, that fell to 30 per cent. In 2010, that fell to 19 per cent. There has been a transformation. In 2007-08, when the Labor Party was elected to government, they commissioned Steve Bracks to look at the entire car industry. In February 2008, Mitsubishi closed their operations in Adelaide under Labor. Did we cry about that? No. But I will tell you who celebrated that.

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