Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, recognising the necessity to preserve manufacturing in Australia to address rising unemployment and the plight of people about to be dismissed at Pacific Brands, the House:

(1)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

introduce ‘an emergency measure under WTO rules’ to provide an interim 15 per cent tariff on goods that are imported to replace textile clothing and footwear (TCF) items such as those produced at Pacific Brands; and

(b)

abandon its intention to abolish the existing TCF tariff regime; and

(2)

directs the Government to finance a loan to allow Pacific Brands workers to purchase significant shareholdings in the company through salary-sacrifice arrangements in order to purchase a share issue made to provide the refinancing funds needed to enable continued manufacturing by Pacific Brands in Australia.

My two Independent colleagues support this motion. They have asked me what it has got to do with my electorate. Frankly, it has absolutely nothing to do with my electorate. This is one of the very few times I have ever moved a motion in this place. But, as an Australian, I believe that each of us must confront the question: do we want to live in a country with no manufacturing? The Prime Minister has said that he does not want to preside over the death of manufacturing in Australia. This is the underwear and garment industry. It also makes the slouch hat and many other things in Australia. This is the last of our great manufacturing industries gone. If you want to feel slightly ill then have a look at what actually happened here. We do not know whether the former Chief Executive of Pacific Brands, Paul Moore, did not want to do the dirty work himself and brought in somebody else to do it or what his reasons were, but we do know that he received $3.4 million as a retirement payment, and that took his total package for 2008 to $5.8 million. What the people of Australia and the people who own shares in Pacific Brands got for that $5.8 million was effectively the liquidation of that company.

The shareholders of Pacific Brands are listening to the lady who is now the chief executive. If they believe that the Chinese who come to sell those products in Australia would allow them to make a handsome agency fee on the way past then they would believe in the tooth fairy—that ain’t gonna happen! And if they think that Woolworths and Coles are not going to buy direct from the manufacturer overseas then they also believe in the tooth fairy. Great damage has been done to the interests of the shareholders in this case.

The government stand very much criticised and condemned on this issue. They come in here and parade themselves as friends of the Australian workers. But 2,000 Australians are going to lose their jobs—the company does not deny that, nor do the government—and this country will lose the capacity to make clothing. It is very interesting to consider what capacity this country will still have. We will have the ability to sell real estate and shares to each other. All of the great energies and savings of this nation are expended on nothing else but predatory practices—‘I’ll take over your company’—or speculative practices. So tonight we are putting up a program that will enable this company to survive. We have proposed an interim 15 per cent tariff on goods that are imported to replace TCF items such as those produced by Pacific Brands.

Under WTO rules, if there is an industry in your country that is in jeopardy then you can take emergency measures, whether it be an emergency tariff, a quota or whatever. It is not a breach of WTO rules. That can continue for two years. It can be extended for two years at the request of the nation involved and, under special circumstances, it can be continued beyond that point for another two years. So we have every chance here to buy time for this company. So what do they do in that time frame? If they are assured that there is going to be a continuation of the 25 per cent tariff regime then they will have the ability to survive. They could be given some government contracts, and indubitably they should be given government contracts. Mr Deputy Speaker Secker, you, like me, come from a rural area. I have always bought Baxter boots. But they have recently announced their closure, with 120 jobs to vanish, and they will make their products in China. I asked them: ‘What precipitated this move? I understand all the pressures that you are under.’ They said, ‘The government moved the contract for Army shoes overseas.’ So it was the government that actually brought down the coup de grace. This company has been around since the 1850s. Baxter has been making boots in Australia since the 1850s. So the answers are there.

This motion calls on the government to abandon its intention to abolish the existing TCF tariff regime. No country in the world operates without a tariff regime, and I say that without any apologies. The Americans, without the slightest hesitation, said steel was going to be protected. It behoves the government to act in this area. (Time expired)

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, my Independent colleagues are not here this evening, so we will have to move the motion again. I apologise to the House for that. These are circumstances beyond my control.