Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In moving the motion that stands in my name, the House will note that there are four parts to it. In the course of my remarks on this matter, I will try to touch on each one of those four parts. The first notes that the General Motors Holden plant in Elizabeth is an iconic South Australian industry that directly employs around 2,500 people. In recent times, there has been considerable public debate about the economy and jobs in Australia—rightly so, because the two are linked. A strong economy means more jobs, and if people are working it is a sign of a strong economy. A strong economy and jobs mean security for Australian families. Long-term jobs and economic security are important not only to Australian families but to whole communities and the country as a whole.

The notion that we are debating goes to the heart of jobs and economic security for tens of thousands of people not only in South Australia but right around the country. If General Motors Holden's operations in Australia were to cease or even be scaled back there would be a cascading effect through other employment sectors and, in turn, through communities across the country. The Gillard government well understands that. The South Australian government well understands that. The only political party that does not seem to understand that is the coalition, both here in federal politics and at state level in South Australia. These coalition parties do not understand the importance of the automotive industry to South Australia and to the nation as a whole. That is why earlier this year the Minister for Manufacturing Senator Kim Carr and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill travelled to Detroit in the USA to speak to executives of GM and Ford in order to secure a long-term future for GM and Ford operations in Australia.

Senator Carr and Premier Weatherill should be commended for doing so, and that is part of my motion. They should be commended because their trip to the USA sent a very clear message to all about the importance of the car industry to Australia. It is important as an industry sector and it is important to the lives of tens of thousands of people who directly depend on it. Their visit to Detroit and the USA sent a very clear message to the people that work in that industry gave them hope for the future, knowing full well that around the world the automotive sector is finding it very difficult right now. If ever there was a time when political leadership was needed, securing the long-term future of the Australian automotive industry was such a time. I commend Senator Carr and Premier Weatherill for making the time to go and speak directly with the heads of the automotive sector in the USA. Those who argue that we should stop supporting the auto industry take a simplistic, narrow-minded view of its importance to our economy, to the creation of jobs and to the lives of workers within that industry. The GMH plant at Elizabeth effectively started off in 1958, and it has been critical to the economy of Adelaide's northern region for nearly 50 years now. Today, as I said earlier, the plant employs about 2,500 employees. It makes about 90,000 cars a year, and I recall that only a few years ago the figure was almost double that. In the last decade alone, it has generated hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the new automotive supply industries in Edinburgh Parks, located adjacent to the GMH plant and providing GMH components on a just-in-time production system. I am very familiar with that because it happened during the time that I was mayor of the city of Salisbury and I know how important it was not only to GMH but to the region as a whole and to so many other industries that are reliant on those businesses that have established themselves at Edinburgh Parks. It truly is a multihundred-million dollar investment, which today generates and creates thousands of jobs.

Each of those businesses there not only today support the automotive industry but industries around the country. So the importance of those industries extends much further than just the region within which they are located. The direct and indirect jobs created would, as I have said, run into tens of thousands. But there is a broader effect on the region when jobs are lost, as we have seen in other communities around the country. I am sure that the member for Riverina would understand the impact of what happens to communities when jobs are lost because, apart from the jobs being lost, what we also then start seeing are higher social costs—people defaulting on their mortgages, health costs rising and the like. That would certainly happen in the region that I represent if GMH was not there or started to scale down its operations.

When members opposite criticise the government assistance to the automotive industry, consider what the alternative social costs would be if we do not support that industry and it collapses. Even doing a very basic calculation of income tax lost in one year alone if the plant were to close, you would soon find that the amount of income tax revenue lost to the government would probably be far, far greater than the assistance that is being talked about. That is without looking at unemployment payments, training packages and losses in other industry, and that is simply from that plant alone. Yes, it is true that some employees might find alternative work in the long term, but that will not happen straight away. Even if it does happen, they will need reskilling, because the employees we have at GMH at Elizabeth are very highly skilled employees but they are skilled for the job that they were doing. Their skilling was part and parcel of their training over the years as part of their employment with GMH. It would be an absolute shame to lose those skills altogether.

I have talked about the indirect job losses that would also flow as a result of the GMH plant closing because the automotive industry in this country underpins much of our engineering and advanced manufacturing expertise. The skills and know-how that emanate from the GMH plant flow through to other industries. That would all be lost. But, of course, there are other implications and I just want to quickly talk about a couple of them. One of them is this: if that plant closes, the exports from that plant close. The sales of Australian made cars in Australia also decrease, and that means more imports. So we reduce our exports and we increase our imports. That affects our balance of trade and then there is a flow-on effect in other economic impacts. The automotive industry in this country employs some 46,000 people directly and around 200,000 or more indirectly. Then if you put on top of that all the manufacturing jobs that are somewhat associated with the automotive industry, it is a huge base that is entirely reliant on it. When we talk about support by the government for the automotive industry in this country, it is important that we put it into perspective by comparing it with what is happening in other countries. I am sure my colleague here the member for Wakefield, who has spoken on this issue on many occasions, will talk about that comparison. It is clear to me from the figures that I have seen that when we put on the table what this government is putting on the table in terms of taxpayers' dollars—which equates to around $18 per person in Australia—and we compare that with what is happening overseas—with figures of up to $265 per person in the USA—we start to understand that the money that is being requested is not unreasonable. Furthermore, whatever the government puts on the table is usually matched three or four to one. So, again, what it is really doing is bringing money into this country.

The last point I want to make refers to the condemnation of the coalition for their particular position on it. The automotive industry does not operate on a year-to-year basis. They need a five-year forward plan program in place. They need to know today what is going to happen in five years time in order to make the necessary changes and investment. For the coalition to say that they are going to cut $500 million out of the government's support program for the automotive sector in this country is to create uncertainty for the whole of the community and uncertainty for the industry.

Let me assure members of the coalition that the people I speak to understand that. The communities that I speak to understand that, the journalists who have written about this story understand that and, certainly, the workers at GMH understand that. The coalition should be condemned for creating the uncertainty they have in the minds and the lives of those families living in the region I represent and which the member for Wakefield represents because of their intention to cut $500 million from government assistance to the automotive industry in this country. (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly, the General Motors Holden plant in Elizabeth is an iconic South Australian industry. It is an important manufacturing base, the vibrancy and wellbeing of which is the very pulse of this nation's manufacturing heartbeat. The fact that GMH directly employs around 2½ thousand people is proof enough of just how vital it is to the Australian economy.

The indirect benefits that GMH brings to its home state and to the country generally are enormous. It is one of the most trusted automotive brands worldwide. The fact that Australians can drive a product built right here with care and precision, using Australian standards and Australian workers, instils a deep sense of deep achievement and pride in all of us.

The January 2012 visit to Detroit in the United States of America by the Minister for Manufacturing, Senator Kim Carr, and the South Australian Premier, Jay Weatherill, seeking to secure the long-term future of the General Motors Holden Elizabeth plant, was essential. It was the very least these important players in the whole equation could have done. They did what would be expected of them. They need to do anything and everything to support the jobs, direct and indirect, of thousands of South Australians. I agree with the member for Makin, who said that when jobs are lost there are high social costs to a community; people, unfortunately, end up defaulting on mortgages. Unfortunately, when jobs are lost our Prime Minister describes them, passes them off and dismisses them as 'growing pains'—a very unfortunate thing to say.

I believe the member for Makin when he says that the automotive industry underpins much of Australia's engineering and manufacturing expertise. He is right; he is so correct. As he pointed out, quite correctly, fewer homemade cars means more imports. This affects, as he correctly pointed out, our balance-of-trade figures.

But one of the greatest threats looming large over the Australian manufacturing sector is the carbon tax. To take effect from 1 July, the carbon tax will hit manufacturing hard, including the automotive industry. It will send many Australian jobs offshore. As a nation, we neither can afford nor need a carbon tax. The timing of it simply could not be worse. With European economies in meltdown and the United States of America facing such fiscal uncertainty it is simply unfathomable why this Labor government is pushing ahead with its carbon tax, which will hurt Australian families, which will hurt Australian manufacturing and which will hurt car makers such as GMH at Elizabeth.

The national divisional secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vehicle division, Ian Jones, put it bluntly yet accurately when he said:

… the Prime Minister does not understand manufacturing's importance to the economy.

This Labor-Greens Alliance does not understand the importance of manufacturing. It has let the Prime Minister forge ahead with the carbon tax in order to stay in power. It is a tax which will affect all industries and do nothing to help the environment.

The Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers chief executive officer, Richard Reilly, said:

We are going to be impacted by a carbon tax, and our competitors won't.

This government will impose a $460 million carbon tax on the automotive industry at a time when we should be bunkering down against the global downturn and doing everything we can to sustain and even to boost local manufacturing. In the 2010 election the coalition was upfront and honest with the Australian public about a $278 million cut from the Green Car Innovation Fund. Labor, however, slashed $885 million from the fund only months after the 2010 election—yet another example of a broken promise from a broken government.

Labor has broken $1.4 billion in promises to the car industry. It has jacked up luxury car taxes and made changes to the fringe benefits tax. In my electorate of Riverina the Wagga Motors dealership is seeing up to $15,000 dropped from the drive-away price of luxury imported cars as the standard model now includes all elements that were previously added extras. Wagga Motors dealership principal Scott Braid said:

We have to rely on turnover now (to make significant revenue), not up-selling to better packages. The Aussie dollar pressure is pressure on the manufacturer's margin and also our own.

The last thing Wagga Motors and other regional dealers whose margins are already under pressure need is for GMH in South Australia to be hit hard. The last thing regional motor dealerships need is for families to feel the full brunt of an unnecessary and unaffordable carbon tax to make buying that next vehicle an unrealistic option.

The Automotive Transformation Scheme is the biggest fund from which assistance is given to the auto industry, and it is a retrospective scheme. Certain parameters need to be achieved: production outcomes, investment in research and development and investment in plant and equipment. At Senate estimates this month it was revealed that at least $34 million may have been paid out in breach of Labor's own car industry funding legislation. In the words of the shadow minister for industry, innovation and science, the member for Indi, reacting to the Senate estimates leak, the government were saying: 'It's okay; you don't have to comply with any of these requirements for funding. If there is money left over in the fund, well, it is up to us. If you're nice to us we might give it to you.'

This government is borrowing $10 0 million a day. How can it make these promises? The coalition has provided generous support to the car industry when in government in the past. A plan was put together by the Howard government that was to run from 2002 to 2015, with a Productivity Commission review in 2008, underpinned by set parameters and guidelines with transparency, as with all things that administration undertook, being a hallmark. However, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd abolished the plan in 2007 and in doing so stripped $1.4 billion from the car industry. On 23 January 2012 Toyota announced it would be axing 350 jobs at its Altona North factory. That is one in 10 jobs by mid April—literally a decimation. On 2 February 2012 another 100 jobs were lost at Holden. These are jobs that Australian families can ill afford to lose—families who pay taxes, families who have kids at school, families who just want job security for the future.

The manufacturing minister's stewardship of his portfolio, both in opposition and in government, has been underwhelming. He has been found to be wanting. He, along with the Prime Minister, said he wanted to be a minister in a country that still made things. That is a view all of us in this place should share. But, given what is happening and what this Labor government has in store, it is going to be a bumpy road ahead. In recent times, 75,000 workers have lost their jobs while being promised job security in the manufacturing sector, and the Prime Minister brushes this aside as 'growing pains'. On 3AW radio station earlier the minister himself said about manufacturing jobs, 'I wouldn't say anyone's job was safe.' Months later, the union movement itself was telling us that the manufacturing sector is in crisis. That was courtesy of the Australian Workers Union.

So we have a sector in which no job is safe, according to the minister, and sector that is in crisis, according to Labor's own union movement. This is not an ideal time to be foisting a carbon tax on the manufacturing industry and the largely unsuspecting people of Australia. I say 'unsuspecting' because just prior to the 2010 election the Prime Minister said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' And we all know that the government, in order to keep faith with the Greens and to keep faith with the regional Independents and to keep in office, has now turned around and imposed a carbon tax on an unsuspecting Australian people. The Prime Minister's words on the future of the car industry and business innovation at her so-called major speech on 1 February this year are hollow, because they lack credibility. The Prime Minister raised the role of sovereign risk in current global instability, but she failed to mention her own broken promises to the car industry, which have sparked that very reality here in Australia.

On 27 June 2011 GM Holden's chairman and managing director, Mike Devereux, said:

We cut a deal with the Prime Minister back in 2008 and then, mid-way through, the rules of the game changed.

… it certainly worries a multi-national parent when sovereign risk begins to be something that is bandied about in terms of doing business in Australia.

How true those words still ring today.

If the Prime Minister had a genuine interest in the car industry, in manufacturing or in innovation she never would have broken her promise not to introduce a carbon tax, which will be a $460 million burden on the industry. She would not have broken $1.4 billion of car industry promises. She would not have dumped manufacturing from cabinet. She would not have crippled government support for business research and development and she would not have completely failed to stem the worst rate of manufacturing job losses in Australia's history. This is also a Prime Minister who has such a poor understanding of the car industry that she ridiculously claimed Cash for Clunkers was a groundbreaking program and that it would have changed the way we live. Both of these programs have since been axed as part of the trashing of an amazing $1.4 billion of Labor broken promises to car makers.

Manufacturing jobs in the automotive industry are important and we should do everything we can to help them. But, unfortunately, the Labor government is not.

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

We just heard a rather interesting speech from the member for Riverina. It was more about ranting about the carbon tax. It was a strange combination between a broken record and a parrot banging on about the carbon tax. I do not know what you are going to do come 1 July. I do not know what you are going to talk about.

This motion has very ably been presented to the Federation Chamber by the member for Makin, who is a great champion of the car industry—if you will allow me the pun. He has been, for a very long time, a bit of an icon in his own right in the northern suburbs. As mayor of Salisbury—I was fortunate enough to live in Salisbury for a while—he was a great mayor and a great defender of jobs and the culture in the northern suburbs. He was a great defender of the northern suburbs against some in the media. So it is understandable that he is in here defending the issue of Australians having a choice of Australian cars. When you get to the bottom of this whole debate it is about whether or not Australian consumers are going to have an Australian choice when they go to the car yard to buy a car. Those opposite want to buy BMWs and Mercedes, let's be honest about it. They want Australians to be buying Hyundais and Great Walls. That is their future vision for Australian manufacturing. You only have to listen to the member for Mayo, and others, who talk about being played for fools by Detroit. What they really want to do is eliminate the Australian option. This is despite the great success story that is the Australian car industry.

In the middle of the global financial crisis we got a second model at Holden's Elizabeth plant, the Holden Cruze. And everywhere you look Australians are buying this fantastic small car. And you still see the Commodore and the Holden Commodore ute. People want to buy them. They want that choice.

The member for Makin talked about the sorts of extreme subsidies paid in other countries and the sorts of tariff arrangements in other countries. This is not a level playing field. It is a distorted market and we must compete in the real world, not in some fantasy world of a level playing field invented by pointy-headed economists and those opposite. It is a fiction.

We must compete and we must provide assistance—co-assistance and co-investment—to ensure that we get the next model Commodore and Cruze and from this plant, which is worth two per cent of South Australia's gross state product and which employs 2,500 directly and thousands more in my state. Most importantly, you cannot imagine the town of Elizabeth without car manufacturing. Elizabeth is the town where I was born and I do not live too far from there now; I live in the city of Salisbury. But it is impossible to imagine Elizabeth without car manufacturing, it is impossible to imagine the South Australian economy without car manufacturing, and it is impossible to imagine this nation not manufacturing cars—just impossible.

This is about patriotism. It is about an Australian consumer having the right to own and drive around in an Australian car built by Australian workers. Those opposite want us driving around in BMWs—well, I should correct myself: they want to drive around in BMWs. They want workers to be driving around in some garbage—some of the cheap imports coming in are poorly made rubbish in the main—and they want to outsource our car industry. That is what their plan is for this industry: they want to send it on a slow boat to China.

This government intends to make sure that we keep building cars in this country, and that is why we will oppose the coalition's $500 million cut, which is just the beginning because as of 2015, and they have made this quite clear, it is a billion dollar cut. It is a billion dollar cut to send Australian jobs on a slow boat to China. Make no mistake about it, that is their policy. That is their intention. That is their commitment and that is what they will do if they are elected to office. (Time expired)

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the mover of this motion that the General Motors Holden plant in Elizabeth is an iconic South Australian industry directly employing around 2,500 people. I acknowledge the important contribution the General Motors Holden Elizabeth plant makes to the South Australian economy and the broader Australian manufacturing industry. But, at that point, I depart from simply acknowledging those facts in relation to the automotive industry. I want to draw the mover of the motion's attention to another iconic Australia industry that is being absolutely ignored by this government. I think we need to consider that other industry in the light of the support that is being given to automotive, because the problems of these two sectors are very similar.

What are these problems? One of them is the costs of doing business in Australia, particularly the impending carbon tax, which will mean that any industry that is export exposed and energy intensive, like the car industry, is going to be looking at incredibly increased costs and loss of competitiveness. Then there is the daily increasing inflexibility of the Australian workforce. There are high labour costs in Australia, but in the past our productivity has made up for that. Unfortunately, with our productivity stalling and the inflexible workforce with the amazing union dominated conditions that now prevail in any workplace, the automotive industry is suffering. There is the surging dollar, and this government is refusing to pay attention to the incredible difficulties any exporter has with this unmanaged surging dollar. We have got skills shortages in this country and then we have a lack of local demand for local automotives compared to some other products being imported into Australia at much more competitive prices.

What other sector has similar constraints and problems but is, in fact, much bigger than the iconic automotive industry in the value it delivers and the numbers it employs? Let us look at Australian agriculture. Let us look at food manufacturing. Australian farmers and allied sectors generate $133 billion a year in production, equating to 12.1 per cent of GDP. The gross value of Australian farm production at farm gate totals $41.8 billion a year. Australian farm exports earned the country $32.1 billion in 2008-09, representing 11.9 per cent of total exports and 14.7 per cent of all Australian merchandise exports—and that was in drought years.

Australian agriculture is an Australian icon, just like automotive. It supports the jobs of 359,900 other Australians. These jobs are in farming and related industries across our cities and our regions. Like the automotive industry, agriculture is a real job multiplier. Farmers occupy and manage 54 per cent of Australia's land mass and they are on the frontline of delivering environmental outcomes on behalf of the broader community. Australian farmers spent $3 billion on natural resource management over 2006-07. They manage weeds and look after the soil and the land mass, native vegetation and so on. Australian primary industries have led the nation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a massive 40 per cent between 1990 and 2006. So what I am saying to the mover of this motion is how come automotive is getting this beaut helping hand from the Australian government—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because it provides jobs.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I just identified how many jobs are provided by agriculture. You cannot compare the two. If agriculture, like the iconic South Australian General Motors Holden plant, is also creating jobs and battling to stay competitive with the high cost of wages, high energy costs, the high dollar and the difficulties with workplace relations right now, I just ask for a level playing field. I just say hang on, take the blinkers off. I know not many rural people vote Labor—in fact very few—but that should not be the governing principle behind who identifies where the needs are and who does not. Of course the South Australian General Motors Holden industry is an icon—most people who are more than half a century old have had a Holden at some stage during their lifetime. But we also have agriculture and we want to eat Australian food in the future, so I ask this government to get a life, look beyond South Australian marginal seats and understand that there are other icons that deserve some attention.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am absolutely amazed by the member for Murray's speech, indicating that she does not support the automotive industry. We know that when agriculture has droughts and floods and when there are important issues facing the agriculture industry, governments of all persuasions always provide assistance. We know that for a fact—it happened in the floods last year and it has happened in droughts—so it is absolutely absurd for the member for Murray to talk about providing assistance to the automotive industry, which provides jobs for blue-collar workers who live in the cities, who cannot afford to buy land and who cannot go out and start an agricultural business.

This industry provides jobs for thousands of people in my electorate, in the electorate of the member for Makin, in the electorate of the member for Chifley and in the electorate of the member for La Trobe. These jobs provide income for people to pay their mortgages, to send their children to school and to ensure that they have the ability to progress themselves in life. We know that farmers do produce a lot of our trade, and they have my support. But to turn around and say that the automotive industry does not require support—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't say that.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Murray used the example of the two industries and asked why was it that the agriculture industry did not get support—but they do get support. In bad times, like in droughts and floods, all governments, Liberal and Labor, provide funding to assist agricultural industries.

I speak in favour of the Australian automotive industry, including the iconic brands and the models that have been produced in South Australia by Holden over many years. I say this because I have first-hand experience. The first-hand experience I have is that my father migrated to this country in 1954. He came off a ship in Port Melbourne and on the second day of his arrival he went to Fishermans Bend and landed a job with General Motors-Holden's. He stayed there until 1979. He was able to earn a living and ensure that his family was looked after. He worked on a production line in very bad conditions in those days. Regardless of what the conditions were like, it provided a living for many thousands of people in this country.

The Australian automotive industry continues to employ thousands of Australians in our electorates all over the country. These jobs are required in all facets of car production, from design right through to the production line and exporting, benefiting the livelihoods of many tens of thousands of Australians across the country. I speak in favour of the proud role of this government, our Labor government, and that of previous Labor governments that recognised the importance of this industry—and it is an important industry. It employs thousands of people across the country in every single seat, even in rural seats. This industry has invested in making itself a success story over many, many years and has a strong prospect of continuing the wealth generation of this country for years to come.

I just gave you a brief example of my own connection to the automotive industry. It is said that there are some 46,000 Australians employed in car manufacturing around the nation today and another 200,000 Australians that are reliant on this industry continuing in Australia. Within South Australia, where General Motors Holden has its Elizabeth plant, there are some 2,700 people directly employed at this site, supporting over 5½ thousand other jobs—and I am being very conservative in those figures—in the manufacturing of the components used by Holden in the building of cars on that site.

This is not an insubstantial industry, this is not an insubstantial workforce, but it is a highly competitive industry which many countries find difficult to sustain. Australia is only one of 13 nations across the globe which has all the skills that are required in manufacturing a motor vehicle. It has all the roles, all the jobs here to produce 21st century automobiles. This is a skill set that we value on this side of the parliament. This is a strategic position that Labor sees as important for Australia to defend and to maintain, unlike those on the other side—and we heard the vitriol from the member opposite earlier. Towards this end Labor governments will continue to assist this industry, and I am very proud that this industry will be assisted by this Labor government. (Time expired)

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the motion moved by my colleague the member for Makin—not, obviously, as a South Australian MP but recognising that we share an interest, as a number of us do on this side, in the future of manufacturing in this country. The electorate of Chifley relies more on the manufacturing sector to provide jobs for local residents than many other electorates around Australia, and just as many as my colleagues here. The latest available census statistics show that over 10,000 people who live in Chifley are employed in manufacturing, accounting for about 16 per cent of total employment. That is considerably higher than the 10.6 per cent average across Australia.

As the Australian economy grows it must do so in a way that includes and supports a vibrant manufacturing sector. Holden—and for that matter Ford and Toyota—are crucial to sustaining manufacturing in this country. The sector itself, as has been reflected on, employs around 46,000 people and another 200,000 people in related manufacturing and service sectors. It consumes—and this is a staggering amount—$1.3 billion in locally manufactured iron and steel, $440 million in polymer products and $157 million in chemicals. And while much has been made of the extent of government assistance to the sector, automotive manufacturing contributes significantly to the overall economy. Holden employs almost 5,000 people, each of whom contributes to the economy through their own taxation and spending. Holden itself estimates that it pays more than $40 million a year in income tax, $2.1 million in fringe benefits tax, $17½ million in payroll tax and $2.1 million a year in property tax. This is a sizeable contribution by this firm.

Australia is only one of 13 countries in the world capable of producing a car from design through R&D to assembly. It is imperative that we hang on to that capability, because it is inherently linked to our ability to innovate. Labor invests in the car industry through programs aimed at improving productivity, global competitiveness and clean technology. During the height of the GFC Labor kept the automotive industry afloat through the $5.4 billion New Car Plan for a Greener Future. It is something that I am proud of; it is something a lot of government members are proud of. Compare that with what the member for Warringah, the Leader of the Opposition, would do. He would cut $1.5 billion in future support from the industry when it needs it most. What does that do to confidence in future policy settings? This policy is not universally accepted in coalition ranks. I understand that there are many members opposite who voice their concerns about what the coalition is proposing to do. The opposition's policy will make it impossible to attract new investment in vehicle models and will put an end to the process of R&D and capital acquisition, the development and adoption of new technologies and the creation of more jobs in the industry. The Prime Minister has given the assurance that, while ever Labor is here, we will be making cars in Australia.

Those opposite make a big deal about the level of industry assistance we are providing, but I would remind them that this is a global industry and we do need to look at what other governments around the world are doing to support their sectors. Australia has a five per cent tariff imposed on passenger motor vehicles and parts, and that is the third lowest in the auto-producing world. Tariffs in the EU and the UK stand at 10 per cent, compared with our level; in China, 25 per cent; and in India, 60 per cent. Research by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has found that Aussie car makers are receiving less than $20 per person in government support. In the UK it is $25 per person; in the US, $250 per person; and in Sweden, as much as $350 per person.

That is a huge difference, as reflected on by my colleague the member for Hindmarsh. When Holden's parent company, General Motors, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, the United States government purchased a 60 per cent stake in the new GM company. During this time, GM Holden continued to stand on its own two feet, without any support from its parent company, and that is a sign of its economic health. The local automotive industry is facing some significant challenges at present, which will exist for some time. On the face of those challenges, such as the high dollar, the rising cost of input materials and the collapse of consumer sales in major export markets hit by the GFC, the last thing we need to do is remove support and say to the 46,000 workers in this sector that they are not valued.

Debate adjourned.