Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the fact that managing director of Holden, Mike Devereux, was reported this morning as having told the Productivity Commission that the cost of losing the car manufacturing industry would dwarf the cost of keeping it. Given the government is cutting $500 million in auto assistance, isn't the government leaving the auto industry with no future at all?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. The only future-killers in this building are the Labor Party. Let me give you some facts. The net combined assistance to the automotive manufacturing industry in 2011 was $1.1 billion of taxpayers' money—$1.1 billion in one year. The average assistance per manufacturing employee is $48,000 of taxpayers' money.

We have put another billion dollars on the table, from 2015. A hell of a lot of industries in Australia would love to get the assistance the automotive industry is getting. A hell of a lot of other businesses, and foreign owned businesses, would love to be able to remit money from Australian taxpayers to head office in Detroit, London, Tokyo or anywhere else. There is no shortage of money that has been going to the motor manufacturing industry. If all those assistance measures have worked so well in the past, why have Ford and Mitsubishi left Australia? If all that money has made a difference, why have two of the four major manufacturers left Australia? And why are we in a position today where the third manufacturer, Holden, is refusing to confirm it is around for the long term, even though there is an additional $1 billion on the table? I will tell you why. It is because the Labor Party has made it so damn hard to make anything in Australia. Labour costs are one great example.

If you really care about the motor vehicle industry, I say to the Labor Party: ring up your good mates at the AMWU and tell them to recommend to the workers at Toyota that they should accept the deal offered by Toyota on Friday. This is where the rubber hits the road. Toyota has an additional cost for manufacturing in Australia of $2,800 per vehicle. They have gone to their employees and said, 'We need to have this deal go through to help to manage—just to manage—the cost of employment in Australia so that we can go back to Tokyo and say to them in good faith that the workers of Australia really do want a manufacturing business.' So the best thing the Labor Party can do is put aside the politics and ring up its mates at the AMWU and tell them to accept the deal being offered by Toyota, which will give them job security.