Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for protecting me once again, Mr Acting Deputy President. I would like to carry on where Senator Xenophon left off. This industry, the automotive industry, survived the global financial crisis. It survived the global restructuring. It survived the record high dollar. The question that now has to be asked by the Australian people and all those people who have an interest in the car industry is: can it survive the Abbott government?

I do not think we can underestimate the importance of this industry to the people of South Australia. Obviously it employs lots of South Australians, as Senator Xenophon said. People in both the north and south are employed, directly and indirectly, in the industry. All of those people rely on this industry for their living It also provides job security to those people and to the people in the state of South Australia. And, of course, it provides lots of spin-offs to other industries. As Senator Carr indicated, something like $1.3 billion of gross state product would be taken out of South Australia in the event that this industry were to collapse.

I have had some personal experiences, and I know that Senator Xenophon has, with what happens when companies teeter on the edge. We had the circumstances at the start of the last decade of the company of Harris Scarfe. It was a great, iconic South Australian company which got into financial trouble. We went to the state government and the state government came to its support. That company continues to employ thousands of South Australians and Australians more broadly across the country. I think that this is one of those industries where we simply have to say that we cannot afford to let this industry fail. As a South Australian, we cannot afford to let this industry fail; as an Australian we cannot afford to let this industry fail.

But there does seem to be question marks over the approach of the new government to this industry. We have heard from Senator Carr about how passionate he was about this industry. I cannot go into as much detail as Senator Carr as to the exact nature of all of the discussions and negotiations that have gone on in this industry, but you can see from Senator Carr how passionate he is for the industry and how passionate this opposition is to ensure that this industry remains not only viable but more importantly a vibrant industry for Australia. As Senator Carr said, no other country in the world is having a debate about whether or not we continue with an auto industry. But Australia is. We are having a debate, I think, because we find that there is only one cabinet minister in the new Abbott government from South Australia.