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

In the short time that is available to me I wish to raise an issue of great concern and angst in my electorate. It concerns the Kimberley-Clark mill in the township of Millicent. Millicent is in my electorate of Barker. It is a town with a little over 5,000 people and about 700 of those are employed at the Kimberly-Clark factory. The Kimberly-Clark factory uses a lot of our wood products and produces tissues, toilet paper and that sort of thing. The government, quite rightly, commissioned a report into whether, under WTO rules, tissue is being dumped in Australia by Indonesia, Thailand and China—countries like that. That report showed that, yes, those countries were dumping tissue and toilet paper in Australia to a quite extensive amount and up to 60 per cent below the cost of production.

When you are faced with that sort of evidence—that product is actually being dumped in Australia, which affects what is produced in Australia and is competing unfairly with what is produced in Australia—I would have thought that the government would have said, ‘We’re going to impose some penalties in the form of tariffs or whatever on the tissue that is being dumped in Australia.’ But, unfortunately, about four weeks ago the Attorney-General announced that they were not going to take any action. That really surprises me. It would really concern me if this company, which has invested millions of dollars into some of the latest technology, world’s best technology, to produce tissue and toilet paper in Australia, is affected and has to close up shop. That would be an absolute travesty. As the Prime Minister said, we want a country that makes things, not just imports things. This decision needs a rethink by the government because, under the WTO rules, we have the right to impose penalties on the dumped product. I am just amazed that they have not done so.

Question agreed to.