Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to voice my serious concern for the jobs of today and the jobs of the future in my electorate of Newcastle. It is a time when we are seeing job after job go out the door as industry tries to adjust to new technologies and changing global circumstances, and this government is doing nothing about it. Businesses are closing, services are being centralised and public sector cuts are hitting hard. It is not just one or two jobs here and there disappearing through natural attrition and efficiencies. It is tens, sometimes hundreds, of jobs disappearing overnight. Today we have confirmation of another 25 jobs that will go, with QantasLink ground handlers at Newcastle Airport out of work by the end of next month. This is in addition to the jobs lost locally in recent times through cuts and closures at Brindabella Airlines, Arrium, Downer EDI, the Hunter TAFE, Pacific National, Sensis, WesTrac, Bradken and UGL, to name just a few.

As the Leader of the Opposition has said in the past, we do not blame this government for every single job loss. But we will always hold them to account for having no plan for future jobs. This is a government that, before the election, said they would create one million jobs within five years of coming to office. Here we are, eight months after the election, and we still see no plan for how these jobs will be created. We wait in anticipation for their masterstroke—the plan that will outline how they will stimulate employment and support industry transition. We thought we might see it in their budget: structural reform to create new jobs and some support for existing jobs at risk.

Sadly, our anticipation was unwarranted. What this budget showed, was that we truly have a government with no plans for jobs. They have no plan to support the jobs of today and no plan for the jobs of the future. They have made that clear. If you are unemployed, particularly if you are under 30, you are on your own. If you are still studying or planning to study, you are going to be paying for it for a very long time. If you are a public servant, we do not want you, we do not need you, find work elsewhere. And if school is not for you, your alternative pathways for education and training are on the way out, and support to help find work just will not be there anymore.

This government's approach is for everyone to fend for themselves. In recent decades, Newcastle has been the beneficiary of a decentralised government agency approach, with the ATO and CSIRO both relocating to our city and becoming major employers in our region. Both agencies have, however, been savagely hit in this budget with the ATO set to lose up to 3,000 employees nation-wide and CSIRO losing more than $100 million of funding with up to 1,000 jobs in danger.

While we do not know the direct effects to Newcastle yet, we know that their future is uncertain under this budget of cruel cuts and twisted priorities. Family-owned shipbuilder Forgacs, one of Newcastle's largest employers, has warned that they will have to close their Carrington and Tomago shipyards within eighteen months, laying off more than 900 highly skilled tradesmen and women, unless the federal government expedites decisions on future naval shipbuilding projects. I have met with Forgacs management team and have taken both the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Defence Minister to the Tomago shipyard to meet with the men and women building Australia's air warfare destroyers. They are an employer that does not want to give up, even when in danger of closing, as they still employ more than 80 apprentices and continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on training every month.

Yet, this may be all to no avail. The last two Defence white papers clearly mapped out Australia's need for more than 40 new ships. But the Abbott Liberal Government has not lifted a finger to help secure Australia's shipbuilding industry since winning the election more than eight months ago. The Defence Minister claims he has a plan to bridge the so-called Valley of Death for our Defence manufacturers, but there was not a single word about it in the budget.

Forgacs and their shipbuilding counterparts across the country need action now. Newcastle and the nation deserve better than what this government is giving us. We need a plan for the future. We need a plan for jobs and we need a plan for industry.

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