Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Good on you, Senator Conroy. You will have the answer to my question then, as someone who is an expert. What number of Australian manufacturing workers will lose their jobs, as a result of the reduction in sales of Australian cars in favour of imported cars, if the Greens amendment gets up? As I understand it, the Greens amendment will favour the flash, imported luxury and other vehicles, none of which are manufactured in Australia. We know from Senator Carr that there is great concern about manufacturing workers’ jobs, particularly in the motor vehicle manufacturing industry, which has come under some pressure in recent times. Ford have laid off a great number of workers, Mitsubishi had to close their Adelaide plant and General Motors are struggling. The numbers of workers being thrown out of jobs are difficult to know at the moment. I ask Senator Conroy, as a former Transport Workers Union official: what work has the government done, what modelling has been done to identify the numbers of manufacturing workers, working families, that will be without a breadwinner as a result? Senator Conroy, you laugh. On this side of the chamber, we have a concern for working families who are looking at losing their jobs in the motor manufacturing industry. I thought that would be something that you in particular would treat very seriously.

I do not know; you may have done the work. That is the purpose of my question. What work has the government done? What modelling has been done that will indicate how the tax proposed by the Greens will favour those imported vehicles—non-Australian manufactured vehicles—and, accordingly, be to the detriment of the Australian manufacturing industry? The question is, Minister: what modelling has been done; what assessment has been done; what numbers do you expect Australian manufactured vehicles to fall by as a result of this incentive for imported vehicles; and what will that do to the industry? That is one question.

There is another question, while you are at it, Minister. Senator Fielding’s motion, which I understand the government have assisted with, provides for one vehicle per year for a primary production family. On family farms in western and Northern Queensland, in Northern Australia, in the area where I come from, there is always more than one four-wheel drive vehicle. On a recent trip out west I visited a property which had a fleet of Toyota four-wheel drives with bullbars, spotlights and all the other safety features.