Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are 120 small businesses that feed into the manufacture of the Bushmaster. And we are ready to get on and build the Hawkei. But why won't this government secure those 120 small businesses and sign the Hawkei contract so that those small businesses can continue to secure work, going forward? This government, if it were serious about small business, would have a genuine defence manufacturing policy where contracts were signed that saw work tomorrow, not in a decade's time—tomorrow. If this government were serious about small business, it would own up to the fact that this is good Labor Party policy that it is adopting here today and it would actually do right by small businesses, rather than dividing them from their workers.

Debate adjourned.

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