Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find it absolutely unbelievable that we have had so much response from the opposition in relation to manufacturing, when, for 11½ years, you were asleep at the wheel—you did absolutely nothing for the Australian manufacturing industry. Elaborately transformed manufacturing exports failed. Investment in the industry failed. Employment in the industry collapsed. You did absolutely nothing. For you to have the hypocrisy to come here and tell the Labor Party what it should do in manufacturing just beggars belief.

I have had some personal experience, as you are aware, in the manufacturing industry. I actually wrote to former Prime Minister John Howard on several occasions seeking an audience to talk about manufacturing jobs. What did I get? I got absolutely no response, and I had written on behalf of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing workers. All the current opposition did was say: ‘Leave it to market forces. Let it rip. Let’s put a couple of free trade agreements in, send the jobs to China, send the jobs to Thailand and continue to be a quarry, a farm and a tourist destination.’ That was the strategy from the now opposition—no vision, no plan and no strategy for manufacturing.

The people I know in the manufacturing industry welcomed the election of a Labor government. They welcomed the appointment of Senator Carr because he is a minister who cares about manufacturing, who cares about manufacturing jobs, who has actually been out and gone into manufacturing plants and who knows the issues that are on hand for that industry. You have probably mentioned manufacturing more today than you did in the whole 11½ years you were in government. You did not care about manufacturing. All you wanted to do was try and compete on cutting workers’ wages, put Work Choices in, ignore investment in the industry and pander to the HR Nicholls Society to say that that is what would bring forward jobs in this country. There were 11½ years of lost opportunity; 11½ years of nothing from you on the other side. You delivered absolutely nothing—no plan, no strategy and no vision.