Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The government has no interest in creating a monopoly. In regard to the auto­motive industry, our approach is to ensure that we actually take a technologically neu­tral stance in regard to the promotion of any particular automotive technologies. What we have sought to do is to ensure diversity and that we are able to ensure that the manufact­uring componentry is able to be produced so that a range of options can be pursued. The process by which we have done that is through co-investment, whereby individual companies are required to actually invest their own money in partnership with govern­ment so as to ensure that they have the necessary skin in the game. No approach has ever been taken on the basis of developing a monopoly for any technology or to particu­larly take any favoured view towards any one company within the automotive industry. So, Senator, our approach is to ensure that we remain one of the— (Time expired)