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

We know what is happening in shipbuilding. I hear my colleague, the member for Kingston, talking about shipbuilding. There are thousands of jobs going in ASC as well. Let's not pretend—as the government wants to do and will no doubt do in a second when they get up and brag about jobs growth—as if that's some sort of camouflage for their performance. There could be more jobs in the economy. Imagine if you didn't close the car industry, you could really get up and brag. We have a gutless Prime Minister. We have a Prime Minister who is guilty of the destruction of this industry and who won't go down to Holden Elizabeth as Chifley did. He won't go down there and make a comment about the last car coming off the line. He won't show up in SA and give us some idea about how our economy might transition.

This is a violent act by this government. Make no mistake about it, it will do immense damage. Unemployment is the key indicator of poverty. I have already met workers, I already know workers, who, without Holden, are in desperate straits. They face losing their homes. What does this government say? They say, 'Go out there and get another job.' That's difficult to do if you're a mature-age worker, that's difficult to do if you have been on WorkCover and that's difficult to do if you don't have easily translatable skills.

This government is terribly guilty, and that's why they won't say anything about the last car coming off the line. I have a little printout—a little picture—of that car. It's a beautiful car, but it doesn't have a Prime Minister next to it. It doesn't have a government minister taking responsibility for this. They just sit there, stone-facedly ignoring the problem, pretending it is not happening and pretending that this violent destruction of Australian jobs—of high-skill, high-wage, important jobs in an iconic industry—is not happening. They want to pretend that this is not happening.

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