Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Urquhart for her question. The Gillard government is committed to ensuring that Australia retains a strong manufacturing industry and welcomes this report. We will now carefully consider the findings of the task force and respond in detail with a major industry and innovation statement in the coming months. This will be our vision for the future of manufacturing and will set out our plans for supporting manufacturing to remain and improve its international competitiveness. The government is supported in principle of most of the report's recommendations. Specifically, the government accepts the recommendation of the task force to establish a manufacturing leaders group. We see an important role for this group in assisting the government to implement its response to the recommendations of the task force.