Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Senator Carr) to a question without notice asked by Senator Colbeck today relating to the Australian manufacturing industry.

The answer by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research follows on from his pitiful defence of his role as a minister yesterday with a ministerial state­ment. That statement was promised by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer on Monday to be a significant statement, but it turned out to be nothing more than a regurgitation of things that everybody already knew. Although Paul Howes said, on Lateline last night, that we now need comprehensive plans for each of a number of industries, the minister has again failed to come up with anything. It demonstrates the significant risk that this government has become. What a failure this minister is in the industry port­folio. We know that his actions in stripping away promises made to the car industry have now put the government in the position of being regarded as a significant governance risk, a sovereign risk, to major corporations and major manufacturing industries being prepared to invest in this country. Those corporations have told us that. So we have the finance industry, the car industry and other manufacturers being really concerned about the sovereign risk that this government presents. This was confirmed by Mr Howes, who effectively said last night that the government has no plans. It needs a compre­hensive plan, according to Mr Howes, but of course the minister is not prepared to address that as an issue. We have seen that, over the last three years, 105,000 jobs have been lost at the rate of 620 jobs per week. The minister again was not prepared to confirm whether or not this was the most rapid rate of job loss in Australian history.

It is little wonder that not only has industry lost confidence in this minister and this government, but even senior union officials, the movers and shakers, those who decide who is and who is not Prime Minister, have lost confidence in this minister and the fact that he has no plans to guide this country forward, and that he has no plans for the manufacturing sector. Why would Mr Howes say that comprehensive plans are now needed for each of a number of industries? Why would he say that if he believed this government actually had those in place? He said that the government is in its deepest crisis since the Great Depression. This is not the Australian newspaper, it is not a member of the Liberal Party or the National Party and it is not anybody on this side of politics; this is a senior Labor official saying that Austra­lian manufacturing is in deep crisis. This is one of the people who decide who the Prime Minister of Australia is, and he is saying that Australia is in its deepest crisis since the Great Depression and that comprehensive plans are now needed for each of a number of industries. Yet Minister Carr came in here yesterday to table a ministerial statement on the manufacturing sector but failed to provide anything new.

The Prime Minister, earlier in the week, indicated that big things were going to be announced, on behalf of the industry port­folio, to deal with job losses at BlueScope Steel and at OneSteel. What did they announce? They announced the appointment of Peter Beattie. Now you have Minister Carr standing on one side—the minister proudly says, 'I will stand beside industry and I will stand beside the workers'—and Peter Beattie standing on the other side. I am sure that industry is absolutely delighted and excited to have that great level of support standing beside them. But what are they doing? They have no new policy and nothing to offer, but one of the people who decides who the Prime Minister of this country is, Mr Paul Howes, says that comprehensive plans are now needed for each of a number of industries. That is a declaration from their own side, from a senior member of the Labor Party, that this government has not found its way. I think I recall Julia Gillard saying, when she took the leadership of the party after Paul Howes gave it to her, that this government had lost its way. It is quite obvious that it still has not found its way and that it has completely and utterly failed industry. The Prime Minister gave every indication of something big earlier in the week, yet the minister failed to deliver it yesterday and again today. (Time expired)