Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government stand condemned not only because they want to introduce a carbon tax to destroy manufacturing but because they are continuing to make decisions to disadvantage and punish Australian manufacturers. We heard yesterday in Senate estimates that the DMO has locked out Australian defence companies from tendering for the design of Australia's next generation of combat uniform fabrics and garments. If it was not embarrassing enough for the government to have backflipped on allowing contracts for that to be made in China, we now hear that Australian companies were locked out and a contract worth $7.8 million has gone overseas to the US. Worse still is that there are Australian companies with extraordinary capability that are actually more qualified to provide this particular service, but they were utterly ignored. We have seen not only a breach of procurement guidelines on priority industry capabilities, but also a government that has refused to reinvest in the critical DMTC soldier survivability program but has given $7.8 million to a firm in the US. We ask the question: why does this government continue to punish Australian companies for their innovation and their investment and their employment in Australia?