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

The member for Boothby's conclusions sound more like a forlorn hope than an actual reality. It is clear that he lives in some sort of bizarre Bizarro World, in a sort of alternative universe. There are only two issues in South Australia and they are submarines, which we all know the Prime Minister outsourced to Japan. We all know that the National Security Committee of Cabinet signed off on it—with a press release to go out—outsourcing our submarines to Japan. We all know it happened; it has not been denied. Members for Boothby and Hindmarsh and others all have to roll in here and pretend that it is otherwise. Never mention a submarine; talk about all things naval. They promised all these frigates out into the never-never. They will build everything in South Australia except for submarines, which are next to be built.

And of course we know all about the car industry, don't we? Here is a headline, dated 11 December, 2013: 'Hockey dares GM to leave'. We all remember that headline. We all remember the government, the Deputy Prime Minister and others up here, basically daring the car industry to leave. What an approach to foreign investment—we have never seen anything like it—daring a company not to invest in Australia. It is absolutely extraordinary. Then the coalition come in here and say: 'But the unemployment rate is 8.2 per cent. Terrible news. Who would've thought it'? The fact is that they knocked back billions of dollars of investment that would have saved 10,000 jobs in the auto industry and hundreds and hundreds of business that hang off it. And now we wonder why we have a jobs crisis in South Australia. I can tell you why. It is because of the Abbott government, because of Treasurer Hockey and because of these people in government, as we speak.

Do not take my word for it. Listen to what Associate Professor John Spoehr said about the unemployment rate:

In my view this is a male unemployment crisis …

Then he pointed out that male employment dropped in South Australia by 8,000. He went on:

It’s been brewing for a while but now it’s obvious that we are in the midst of a male unemployment crisis that will get much worse as the effects of the auto closure and downturn in construction impact over the next year or so …

And further:

I didn’t expect it to hit as hard as this as early as it has … It’s even surprised me.

That is what John Spoehr, from Adelaide uni, said. He knows something about the South Australian labour market. He has been out there at the Stretton Centre, in my electorate—a new centre, funded by the Suburban Jobs Program, by a previous Labor government. The sum of $10 million was invested, along with all the other millions of dollars that have been invested in Edinburgh, the Northern Expressway and all the infrastructure projects that have been delivered while Labor was in government. The Stretton centre is an absolute success story. It will be planning for the future around jobs. And guess what? It was due to be opened a couple of weeks ago, while this parliament was sitting, by Premier Weatherill. But the opening was cancelled and I will tell you why. This government wants to claim the previous government's centre, because the Assistant Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, wants to rock up and claim that project, just like the coalition did when it recently re-turned the sod on Torrens to Torrens. We have the member for Boothby talking about infrastructure—and what do we find? We find that this is a government that is sitting on its hands. And while it is sitting on its hands, instead of planning, it wants to re-announce old projects!

We just had the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, the member for Mayo, in here, hinting that there is going to be another big announcement. We all know what that will be. It will be the Northern Connector, which has been planned for about the last 10 years. This project has been ready to go. You would have thought, when those opposite were closing down the car industry, that they might have something extra to say.

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